1972 

W 

1871 


TH<! 


MECHANISM 


THOUGHT    AND    MORALS. 


AN   ADDRESS 

DELIVERED   BEFORE  THE  PHI   BETA  KAPPA  SOCIETY  OF 
HARVARD   UNIVERSITY,   JUNE   29,    1870. 


WITH  NOTES   AND    AFTERTHOUGHTS. 

BY 
OLIVER   WENDELL    HOLMES. 


1  Car  il  ne  faut  pas  se  mdconnaltre,  nous  sommes  automates  autant 
qu'esprit."  —  PASCAL:  Pens&es,  chap.  xi.  §  4. 


BOSTON: 
JAMES    R.    OSGOOD    &    CO., 

LATE  TICKNOtt  &  FIELDS,  AND  FIELDS,  08QOOD,  &  CO. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1871, 

BY  OLIVER  WENDELL   HOLMES, 
In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


Boston  : 
Stereotyped  and  Printed  by  Rand,  Avery,  &  Frye. 


INTRODUCTION. 


IT  is  fair  to  claim  for  this  Essay  the  license 
which  belongs  to  all  spoken  addresses.  To 
hold  the  attention  of  an  audience  is  the 
first  requisite  of  every  such  composition; 
and  for  this  a  more  highly  colored  rhetoric  is 
admissible  than  might  please  the  solitary 
reader.  The  cheek  of  a  stage  heroine  will 
bear  a  touch  of  carmine  which  would  hardly 
improve  the  sober  comeliness  of  the  mother 
of  a  family  at  her  fireside. 

So  too,  on  public  occasions,  a  wide  range 
of  suggestive  inquiry,  meant  to  stimulate 
rather  than  satiate  the  interest  of  the  listen- 


4  INTRODUCTION. 

ers,  may,  with  some  reason,  be  preferred  to 
that  more  complete  treatment  of  a  narrowly 
limited  subject  which  is  liable  to  prove 
exhaustive  in  a  double  sense. 

In  the  numerous  notes  and  other  additions, 
I  have  felt  the  right  to  use  a  freedom  of  ex 
pression  which  some  might  think  out  of 
place  before  the  mixed  audience  of  a  lit 
erary  anniversary.  The  dissentient  listener 
may  find  himself  in  an  uneasy  position  hard 
to  escape  from  :  the  dissatisfied  reader  has 
an  easy  remedy. 


MECHANISM 


IN 


THOUGHT    AND   MORALS. 


AS  the  midnight  train  rolls  into  an  inter 
mediate  station,  the  conductor's  voice 
is  heard  announcing,  "  Cars  stop  ten  minutes 
for  refreshments."  The  passengers  snatch  a 
brief  repast,  and  go  back,  refreshed,  we  will 
hope,  to  their  places.  But,  while  they  are  at 
the  tables,  one  may  be  seen  going  round 
among  the  cars  with  a  lantern  and  a  ham 
mer,  intent  upon  a  graver  business.  He  is 
clinking  the  wheels  to  try  if  they  are  sound. 
His  task  is  a  humble  and  simple  one  :  he  is 
no  machinist,  very  probably  ;  but  he  can  cast 
a  ray  of  light  from  his  lantern,  and  bring  out 
the  ring  of  iron  with  a  tap  of  his  hammer. 

6 


6  MECHANISM 

Our  literary  train  is  stopping  for  a  very 
brief  time  at  its  annual  station ;  and  I  doubt 
not  it  will  be  refreshed  by  my  youthful  col 
league  before  it  moves  on.  It  is  not  unlikely 
the  passengers  may  stand  much  in  need  of 
refreshment  before  I  have  done  with  them  : 
for  I  am  the  one  with  the  hammer  and  the 
lantern ;  and  I  am  going  to  clink  some  of 
the  wheels  of  this  intellectual  machinery,  on 
the  soundness  of  which  we  all  depend.  The 
slenderest  glimmer  I  can  lend,  the  lightest 
blow  I  can  strike,  may  at  least  call  the  atten 
tion  of  abler  and  better-equipped  inspectors. 

I  ask  your  attention  to  some  considerations 
on  the  true  mechanical  relations  of  the  think 
ing  principle,  and  to  a  few  hints  as  to  the 
false  mechanical  relations  which  have  intruded 
themselves  into  the  sphere  of  moral  self- 
determination. 

I  call  that  part  of  mental  and  bodily  life 
mechanical  which  is  independent  of  our 
volition.  The  beating  of  our  hearts  and  the 
secretions  of  our  internal  organs  will  go  on, 
without  and  in  spite  of  any  voluntary  effort 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  1 

of  ours,  as  long  as  we  live.  Respiration  is 
partially  under  our  control :  we  can  change 
the  rarte  and  special  mode  of  breathing,  and 
even  hold  our  breath  for  a  time  ;  but  the 
most  determined  suicide  cannot  strangle  him 
self  without  the  aid  of  a  noose  or  other 
contrivance  which  shall  effect  what  his  mere 
will  cannot  do.  The  flow  of  thought  is,  like 
breathing,  essentially  mechanical  and  neces 
sary,  but  incidentally  capable  of  being  modi 
fied  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  by  conscious 
effort.  Our  natural  instincts  and  tastes  have 
a  basis  which  can  no  more  be  reached  by  the 
will  than  the  sense  of  light  and  darkness,  or 
that  of  heat  and  cold.  All  these  things  we 
feel  justified  in  referring  to  the  great  First 
Cause :  they  belong  to  the  "  laws  of  Na 
ture,"  as  we  call  them,  for  which  we  are  not 
accountable. 

Whatever  may  be  our  opinions  as  to  the 
relations  between  "mind"  and  "matter,"  our 
observation  only  extends  to  thought  and 
emotion  as  connected  with  the  living  body, 
and,  according  to  the  general  verdict  of 


8.  MECHANISM 

consciousness,  more  especially  with  certain 
parts  of  the  body;  namely,  the  central  organs 
of  the  nervous  system.  The  bold  language 
of  certain  speculative  men  of  science  has 
frightened  some  more  cautious  persons  away 
from  a  subject  as  much  belonging  to  natu 
ral  history  as  the  study  of  any  other  func 
tion  in  connection  with  its  special  organ. 
If  Mr.  Huxley  maintains  that  his  thoughts 
and  ours  are  "  the  expression  of  molecular 
changes  in  that  matter  of  life  which  is  the 
source  of  our  other  vital  phenomena;"1  if 
the  Rev.  Prof.  Haughton  suggests,  though  in 
the  most  guarded  way,  that  "  our  successors 
may  even  dare  to  speculate  on  the  changes 
that  converted  a  crust  of  bread,  or  a  bottle 
of  wine,  in  the  brain  of  Swift,  Moliere,  or 
Shakspeare,  into  the  conception  of  the  gentle 
Glumdalclitch,  the  rascally  Sganarelle,  or 
the  immortal  Falstaff,"  2 — all  this  need  not 

1  On  the  Physical  Basis  of  Life.     New  Haven, 
1870,  p.  261. 

2  Medicine  in  Modern  Times.     London,  1869, 
p.  107. 


IN   THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  9 

frighten  us  from  studying  the  conditions  of 
the  thinking  organ  in  connection  with 
thought,  just  as  we  study  the  eye  in  its 
relations  to  sight.  The  brain  is  an  instru 
ment,  necessary,  so  far  as  our  direct  observa 
tion  extends,  to  thought.  The  "  materialist " 
believes  it  to  be  wound  up  by  the  ordinary 
cosmic  forces,  and  to  give  them  out  again  as 
mental  products: 1  the  "  spiritualist"  believes 
in  a  conscious  entity,  not  interchangeable 
with  motive  force,  which  plays  upon  this 
instrument.  But  the  instrument  must  be 
studied  by  the  one  as  much  as  by  the  other : 
the  piano  which  the  master  touches  must  be 
as  thoroughly  understood  as  the  musical 
box  or  clock  which  goes  of  itself  by  a  spring 
or  weight.  A  slight  congestion  or  softening 
of  the  brain  shows  the  least  materialistic  of 

1  "  It  is  by  no  means  generally  admitted  .that 
the  brain  is  governed  by  the  mind.  On  the  con 
trary,  the  view  entertained  by  the  best  cerebral 
physiologists  is,  that  the  mind- is  a  force  developed 
by  the  action  of  the  brain."  — Journal  of  Psycho 
logical  Medicine,  July,  1870 ;  Editor's  (TW  A. 
Hammond)  Note,  p.  535. 


10  MECHANISM 

philosophers  that  he  must  recognize  the  strict 
dependence  of  mind  upon  its  organ  in  the 
only  condition  of  life  with  which  we  are 
experimentally  acquainted.  And  what  all 
recognize  as  soon  as  disease  forces  it  upon 
their  attention,  all  thinkers  should  recognize, 
without  waiting  for  such  an  irresistible 
demonstration.  They  should  see  that  the 
study  of  the  organ  of  thought,  microscopi 
cally,  chemically,  experimentally,  on  the 
lower"  animals,  in  individuals  and  races,  in 
health  and  in  disease,  in  every  aspect  of 
external  observation,  as  well  as  by  internal 
consciousness,  is  just  as  necessary  as  if  mind 
were  known  to  be  nothing  more  than  a 
function  of  the  brain,  in  the  same  way  as 
digestion  is  of  the  stomach. 

These  explanations  are  simply  a  concession 
to  the  timidity  of  those  who  assume  that 
they  who  study  the  material  conditions  of 
the  thinking  centre  necessarily  confine  the 
sphere  of  intelligence  to  the  changes  in  those 
conditions  ;  that  they  consider  these  changes 
constitute  thought;  whereas  all  that  is  held 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  11 

may  be,  that  they  accompany  thought.  It 
is  a  well-ascertained  fact,  for  instance,  that 
certain  sulphates  and  phosphates  are  sep 
arated  from  the  blood  that  goes  to  the  brain 
in  increased  quantity  after  severe  mental 
labor.  But  this  chemical  change  may  be 
only  one  of  the  factors  of  intellectual  action. 
So,  also,  it  may  be  true  that  the  brain  is  in 
scribed  with  material  records  of  thought ;  but 
what  that  is  which  reads  any  such  records, 
remains  still  an  open  question.  I  have  meant 
to  leave  absolutely  untouched  the  endless  dis 
cussion  as  to  the  distinctions  between  "  mind  " 
and  "  matter,"  l  and  confine  myself  chiefly  to 
some  results  of  observation  in  the  sphere  of 
thought,  and  some  suggestions  as  to  the 
mental  confusion  which  seems  to  me  a  com 
mon  fact  in  the  sphere  of  morals. 

The  central  thinking  organ  is  made  up  of 
a  vast  number  of  little  starlike  bodies  embed- 

1  Matter  itself  has  been  called  "  frozen  "force," 
and,  as  Boscovich  has  said,  is  only  known  to  us  as 
localized  points  of  attraction  and  repulsion. 


12  MECHANISM 

ded  in  fine  granular  matter,  connected  with 
each  other  by  ray -like  branches  in  the  form 
of  pellucid  threads ;  the  same  which,  wrapped 
in  bundles,  become  nerves,  —  the  telegraphic 
cords  of  the  system.  The  brain  proper  is  a 
double  organ,  like  that  of  vision  ;  its  two 
halves  being  connected  by  a  strong  trans 
verse  band,  which  unites  them  like  the 
Siamese  twins.  The  most  fastidious  lover 
of  knowledge  may  study  its  general  aspect  as 
an  after-dinner  amusement  upon  an  English 
walnut,  splitting  it  through  its  natural  suture, 
and  examining  either  half.  The  resemblance 
is  a  curious  freak  of  Nature's,  which  Cowley 
has  followed  out,  in  his  ingenious,  whimsical 
way,  in  his  fifth  "  Book  of  Plants  ;  "  thus 
rendered  in  the  old  translation  from  his  origi 
nal  Latin  :  — 

"  Nor  can  this  head-like  nut,  shaped  like  the  brain 
Within,  be  said  that  form  by  chance  to  gain  : 
For  membranes  soft  as  silk  her  kernel  bind, 
Whereof  the  inmost  is  of  tenderest  kind, 
Like  those  which  on  the  brain  of  man  we  find ; 
All  which  are  in  a  seam-joined  shell  enclosed, 
Which  of  this  brain  the  skull  may  be  supposed." 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  13 

The  brain  must  be  fed,  or  it  cannot  work. 
Four  great  vessels  flood  every  part  of  it  with 
hot  scarlet  blood,  which  carries  at  once  fire 
and  fuel  to  each  of  its  atoms.  Stop  this 
supply,  and  we  drop  senseless.  Inhale  a  few 
whiffs  of  ether,  and  we  cross  over  into  the 
unknown  world  of  death  with  a  return- 
ticket  ;  or  we  prefer  chloroform,  and  perhaps 
get  no  return-ticket.  Infuse  a  few  drachms 
of  another  fluid  into  the  system,  and,  when  it 
mounts  from  the  stomach  to  the  brain,  the 
pessimist  becomes  an  optimist ;  the  despairing 
wretch  finds  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth, 
and  laughs  and  weeps  by  turns  in  his  brief 
ecstasy.  But,  so  long  as  a  sound  brain  is 
supplied  with  fresh  blood,  it  perceives,  thinks, 
wills.1  The  father  of  Eugene  Sue,  the  nov 
elist  in  a  former  generation,  and  M.  Pinel  in 
this,  and  very  recently,  have  advocated  doing 

1  That  is,  acts  as  the  immediate  instrument 
through  which  these  phenomena  are  manifested. 
So  a  good  watch,  in  good  order  and  wound  up, 
tells  us  the  time  of  day.  The  making  and  wind- 
ing-up  forces  remain  to  be  accounted  for. 


14  MECHANISM 

away  with  the  guillotine,  on  the  ground  that 
the  man,  or  the  nobler  section  of  him,  might 
be  conscious  for  a  time  after  the  axe  had 
fallen.  We  need  not  believe  it,  nor  the  story 
of  Charlotte  Corday;  still  less  that  one  of 
Sir  Everard  Digby,  that  when  the  execu 
tioner  held  up  his  heart  to  the  gaze  of  the 
multitude,  saying,  "  This  is  the  heart  of  a 
traitor!"  the  severed  head  exclaimed,  "Thou 
liest !  "  These  stories  show,  however,  the 
sense  we  have  that  our  personality  is  seated 
in  the  great  nervous  centre  ;  and,  if  physiolo 
gists  could  experiment  on  human  beings  as 
some  of  them  have  done  on  animals,  I  will 
content  myself  with  hinting  that  they  would 
have  tales  to  relate  which  would  almost  rival 
the  legend  of  St.  Denis.1 

1  There  is  a  ghastly  literature  of  the  axe  and 
block,  of  which  the  stories  above  referred  to  are 
specimens.  All  the  express  trials  made  on  tbe 
spot  after  executions  in  1803,  in  1853,  and  more 
recently  at  Beauvais,  have  afforded  only  negative 
results,  as  might  be  anticipated  from  the  fact 
that  the  circulation  through  the  brain  is  instantly 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  15 

An  abundant  supply  of  blood  to  a  part 
implies  a  great  activity  in  its  functions.  The 
oxygen  of  the  blood  keeps  the  brain  in  a 
continual  state  of  spontaneous  combustion. 
The  waste  of  the  organ  implies  as  constant  a 
repair.  "  Every  meal  is  a  rescue  from  one 
death,  and  lays  up  for  another ;  and,  while 
we  think  a  thought,  we  die,"  says  Jeremy 
Taylor.  It  is  true  of  the  brain  as  of  other 
organs  :  it  can  only  live  by  dying.  We  must 
all  be  born  again,  atom  by  atom,  from  hour 
to  hour,  or  perish  all  at  once  beyond  repair.1 

arrested ;  and  Pere  Duchesne's  eternuer  dans  le 
sac  must  pass  as  a  frightful  pleasantry.  But  a 
distinguished  physiological  experimenter  informed 
me  that  the  separated  head  of  a  dog,  on  being 
injected  with  fresh  blood,  manifested  signs  of  life 
and  intelligence.  —  See  London  Quarterly  Review, 
vol.  Ixxiii.  p.  273  et  seq. ;  also  N.  Y.  Medical 
Gazette  for  April  9,  1870.  The  reader  who  would 
compare  Dr.  Johnson's  opinion  of  vivisection  with 
Mr.  Huxley's  recent  defence  of  it  may  consult  the 
Idler,  No.  17. 

1  It  is  proper  to  say  here,  that  the  waste  occur- 


16  MECHANISM 

Such  is  the  aspect,  seen  in  a  brief  glance, 
of  the  great  nervous  centre.  It  is  constantly 
receiving  messages  from  the  senses,  and 
transmitting  orders  to  the  different  organs  by 
the  "  up  and  down  trains  "  of  the  nervous 
influence.  It  is  traversed  by  continuous 
lines  of  thought,  linked  together  in  sequences 
which  are  classified  under  the  name  of  "laws 
of  association."  The  movement  of  these 
successions  of  thought  is  so  far  a  result  of 
mechanism,  that,  though  we  may  modify 
them  by  an  exertion  of  will,  we  cannot  stop 
them,  and  remain  vacant  of  all  ideas. 

My  bucolic  friends  tell  me  that  our  horned 
cattle  always  keep  a  cud  in  their  mouths : 
when  they  swallow  one,  another  immediately 
replaces  it.  If  the  creature  happens  to  lose 

ring  in  an  organ  is  by  no  means  necessarily  con 
fined  to  its  stationary  elements.  The  blood  it 
self  in  the  organ,  and  for  the  time  constituting  a 
part  of  it,  appears  to  furnish  the  larger  portion  of 
the  fuel,  if  we  may  call  it  so,  which  is  acted  on 
by  its  own  oxygen.  This,  at  least,  is  the  case 
with  muscle ;  and  is  probabty  so  elsewhere. 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  17 

its  cud,  it  must  have  an  artificial  one  given  it, 
or,  they  assure  me,  it  will  pine,  and  perhaps 
die.  Without  committing  myself  to  the  ex 
actness  or  the  interpretation  of  the  statement, 
I  may  use  it  as  an  illustration.  Just  in  the 
same  way,  one  thought  replaces  another ;  and 
in  the  same  way  the  mental  cud  is  sometimes 
lost  while  one  is  talking,  and  he  must  ask  his 
companion  to  supply  its  place.  "  What  was 
I  saying?  "  we  ask  ;  and  our  friend  furnishes 
us  with  the  lost  word  or  its  equivalent,  and 
the  jaws  of  conversation  begin  grinding 
again. 

The  brain  being  a  double  organ,  like  the 
eye,  we  naturally  ask  whether  we  can  think 
with  one  side  of  it,  as  we  can  see  with  one 
eye  ;  whether  the  two  sides  commonly  work 
together ;  whether  one  side  .may  not  be 
stronger  than  the  other  ;  whether  one  side 
may  not  be  healthy,  and  the  other  diseased ; 
and  what  consequences  may  follow  from 
these  various  conditions.  This  is  the  subject 
ingeniously  treated  by  Dr.  Wigan  in  his 
work  on  the  duality  of  the  mind.  He 


18  MECHANISM 

maintains  and  illustrates  by  striking  facts  the 
independence  of  the  two  sides ;  which,  so  far 
as  headache  is  concerned,  many  of  my  audi 
ence  must  know  from  their  own  experience. 
The  left  half  of  the  brain,  which  controls 
the  right  half  of  the  body,  is,  he  believes,  the 
strongest  in  all  but  left-handed  persons.1 

The  resemblance  of  the  act  of  intelligence 
to  that  of  vision  is  remarkably  shown  in  the 
terms  we  borrow  from  one  to  describe  the 
other.  We  see  a  truth  ;  we  throw  light  on  a 
subject ;  ,we  elucidate  a  proposition  ;  we  darken 

1  Gratiolet  states  that  the  left  frontal  convolu 
tions  are  developed  earlier  than  the  right.  Bail- 
larger  attributes  right-handedness  to  the  better 
nutrition  of  the  left  hemisphere,  in  consequence 
of  the  disposition  of  the  arteries ;  Hyrtl,  to  the 
larger  current  of  blood  to  the  right  arm,  &c.  —  See 
an  essay  on  "  Eight  and  Left  Handedness,"  in  the 
Journal  of  Psychological  Medicine  for  July,  1870, 
by  Thomas  Dwight,  jun.,  M.D. ;  also  "Aphasia  and 
the  Physiology  of  Speech,"  by  T.  W.  Fisher,  in  the 
Bostoji  Medical  and  Surgical  Journal  for  Sept.  22, 
1870. 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  19 

counsel  ;  we  are  blinded  by  prejudice  ;  we 
take  a  narroiv  view  of  things  ;  we  look  at  our 
neighbor  with  a  jaundiced  eye.  These  are 
familiar  expressions ;  but  we  can  go  much 
farther.  We  have  intellectual  myopes,  near 
sighted  specialists,  and  philosophers  who  are 
purblind  to  all  but  the  distant  abstract.  We 
have  judicial  intellects  as  nearly  achromatic 
as  the  organ  of  vision,  eyes  that  are  color 
blind,  and  minds  that  seem  hardly  to  have 
the  sense  of  beauty.  The  old  brain  thinks 
the  world  grows  worse,  as  the  old  retina 
thinks  the  eyes  of  needles  and  the  fractions 
in  the  printed  sales  of  stocks  grow  smaller. 
Just  as  the  eye  seeks  to  refresh  itself  by 
resting  on  neutral  tints  after  looking  at  bril 
liant  colors,  the  mind  turns  from  the  glare  of 
intellectual  brilliancy  to  the  solace  of  gentle 
dulness  ;  the  tranquillizing  green  of  the  sweet 
human  qualities,  which  do  not  make  us  shade 
our  eyes  like  the  spangles  of  conversational 
gymnasts  and  figurantes. 

We  have  a  field  of  vision  :  have  we  a  field 
of  thought  ?     Before  referring  to  some  mat- 


20  MECHANISM 

ters  of  individual  experience,  I  would  avail 
myself  of  Sir  John  Herschel's  apology,  that 
the  nature  of  the  subject  renders  such  refer 
ence  inevitable  ;  as  it  is  one  that  can  only 
be  elucidated  by  the  individual's  putting  on 
record  his  own  personal  contribution  to  the 
stock  of  facts  accumulating. 

Our  conscious  mental  action,  aside  from 
immediate  impressions  on  the  senses,  is  mainly 
pictured,  worded,  or  modulated,  as  in  remem 
bered  music ;  all,  more  or  less,  under  the 
influence  of  the  will.  In  a  general  way,  we 
refer  the  seat  of  thinking  to  the  anterior  part 
of  the  head.  Pictured  thought  is  in  relation 
with  the  field  of  vision,  which  I  perceive  —  as 
others  do,  no  doubt  —  as  a  transverse  ellipse  ; 
its  vertical  to  its  horizontal  diameter  about 
as  one  to  three.  We  shut  our  eyes  to  recall 
a  visible  object :  we  see  visions  by  night. 
The  bright  ellipse  becomes  a  black  ground,  on 
which  ideal  images  show  more  distinctly  than 
on  the  illuminated  one.  The  form  of  the 
-mental  field  of  vision  is  illustrated  by  the 
fact,  that  we  can  follow  in  our  idea  n  ship 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  21 

sailing,  or  a  horse  running,  much  farther, 
without  a  sense  of  effort,  than  we  can  a  bal 
loon  rising.  In  seeing  persons,  this  field  of 
mental  vision  seems  to  be  a  little  in  front  of 
the  eyes.  Dr.  Howe  kindly  answers  a  letter 
of  inquiry  as  follows :  — 

"  Most  congenitally-blind  persons,  when 
asked  with  what  part  of  the  brain  they 
think,  answer,  that  they  are  not  conscious  of 
having  any  brain. 

"  I  have  asked  several  of  the  most  thought 
ful  and  intelligent  among  our  pupils  to 
designate,  as  nearly  as  they  can,  the  seat  of 
sensation  in  thought ;  and  they  do  so  by 
placing  the  hand  upon  the  anterior  and  upper 
part  of  the  cranium." 

Worded  thought  is  attended  with  a  distinct 
impulse  towards  the  organs  of  speech :  in 
fact,  the  effort  often  goes  so  far,  that  we 
"  think  aloud,"  as  we  say.1  The  seat  of 

1  The  greater  number  of  readers  are  probably 
in  the  habit  of  articulating  the  words  mentally. 
Beginners  read  syllable  by  syllable. 

"  A  man  must  be  a  poor  beast,"  said  Dr.  John- 


22  MECHANISM 

this  form  of  mental  action  seems  to  me  to  be 
beneath  that  of  pictured  thought;  indeed, 
to  follow  certain  nerves  downward :  so  that, 
as  we  say,  "  My  heart  was  in  my  mouth," 

son,  "  that  should  read  no  more  in  quantity  than 
he  could  utter  aloud."  There  are  books  of  which 
we  can  exhaust  a  page  of  its  meaning  at  a  glance  ; 
but  a  man  cannot  do  justice  to  a  poem  like  Gray's 
Elegy  except  by  the  distinct  mental  articulation 
of  every  word.  Some  persons  read  sentences  and 
paragraphs  as  children  read  syllables ;  taking  their 
sense  in  block,  as  it  were.  All  instructors  who 
have  had  occasion  to  consult  a  text-book  at  the 
last  moment  before  entering  the  lecture-room 
know  that  clairvoyant  state  well  enough  in  which 
a  page. prints  itself  on  their  perception  as  the  form 
of  types  stamped  itself  on  the  page. 

We  can  read  aloud,  or  mentally  articulate,  and 
keep  up  a  distinct  train  of  pictured  thought,  — 
not  so  easily  two  currents  of  worded  thought 
simultaneously :  though  this  can  be  done  to  some 
extent ;  as,  for  instance,  one  may  be  reading  aloud, 
and  internally  articulating  some  well-known  pas 
sage. 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  23 

we  could  almost  say,  "  My  brain  is  my 
mouth."  A  particular  spot  has  been  of  late 
pointed  out  by  pathologists,  not  phrenologists, 
as  the  seat  of  the  faculty  of  speech.1  I  do 
know  that  our  sensations  ever  point  to  it. 
Modulated  or  musical  consciousness  is  to 
pictured  and  worded  thought  as  algebra  is 
to  geometry  and  arithmetic.  Music  has  an 
absolute  sensuous  significance  —  the  wood- 
chuck  which  used  to  listen  to  my  friend  play 
ing  the  piano  I  suppose  stopped  at  that ; 2  — 
but  for  human  beings  it  does  not  cause  a  mere 
sensation,  nor  an  emotion,  nor  a  definable 
intellectual  state,  though  it  may  excite  many 
various  emotions  and  trains  of  worded  or 
pictured  thought.  But  words  cannot  truly 
define  it :  we  might  as  well  give  a  man  a 

1  A  part  of  the  left  anterior  lobe.  —  See  Dr. 
Fisher's  elaborate  paper  before  referred  to. 

2  For  various   alleged   instances    of  the  power 
of  music  over  different  lower  animals,  —  the  cow, 
the   stag,  mice,  serpents,  spiders,  —  see  Dwight's 
Journal  of  Music  for  Oct.  26,  1861. 


24  MECHANISM 

fiddle,  and  tell  him  to  play  the  Ten  Command 
ments,  as  give  him  a  dictionary,  and  tell  him 
to  describe  the  music  of  "  Don  Giovanni." 

The  nerves  of  hearing  clasp  the  roots  of 
the  brain  as  a  creeping  vine  clings  to  the 
bole  of  an  elm.  The  primary  seat  of  musical 
consciousness  seems  to  be  behind  and  below 
that  of  worded  thought ;  but  it  radiates  in  all 
directions,  calling  up  pictures  and  words,  as 
I  have  said,  in  endless  variety.  Indeed,  the 
various  mental  conditions  I  have  described 
are  so  frequently  combined,  that  it  takes 
some  trouble  to  determine  the  locality  of 
each. 

The  seat  of  the  will  seems  to  vary  with 
the  organ  through  which  it  is  manifested ; 
to  transport  itself  to  different  parts  of  the 
brain,  as  we  may  wish  to  recall  a  picture, 
a  phrase,  or  a  melody  ;  to  throw  its  force 
on  the  muscles  or  the  intellectual  processes. 
Like  the  general-in-chief,  its  place  is  any 
where  in  the  field  of  action.  It  is  the  least 
like  an  instrument  of  any  of  our  faculties  ; 
the  farthest  removed  from  our  conceptions  of 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.       25 

mechanism  and  matter,  as  we  commonly  de 
fine  them. 

This  is  my  parsimonious  contribution  to 
our  knowledge  of  the  relations  existing  be 
tween  mental  action  and  space.  Others  may 
have  had  a  different  experience ;  the  great 
apostle  did  not  know  at  one  time  whether  he 
was  in  the  body  or  out  of  the  body :  but 
my  system  of  phrenology  extends  little  be 
yond  this  rudimentary  testimony  of  con 
sciousness. 

When  it  comes  to  the  relation  of  mental 
action  and  time,  we  can  say  with  Leibnitz, 
"  Calculemus  ;  "  for  here  we  can  reach  quanti 
tative  results.  The  "  personal  equation,"  or 
difference  in  rapidity  of  recording  the  same 
occurrence,  has  been  recognized  in  astronomi 
cal  records  since  the  time  of  Maskelyne,  the 
royal  astronomer  ;  and  is  allowed  for  with  the 
greatest  nicety,  as  may  be  seen,  for  instance, 
in  Dr.  Gould's  recent  report  on  Transatlan 
tic  Longitude.  More  recently,  the  time  re 
quired  in  mental  processes  and  in  the  trans 
mission  of  sensation  and  the  motor  impulse 


26  MECHANISM 

along  nerves  has  been  carefully  studied  by 
Helmholtz,  Fizeau,  Marey,  Bonders,  and 
others.1  From  forty  to  eighty,  a  hundred  or 
more  feet  a  second  are  estimates  of  different 
observers :  so  that,  as  the  newspapers  have 
been  repeating,  it  would  take  a  whale  a  sec 
ond,  more  or  less,  to  feel  the  stroke  of  a  har 
poon  in  his  tail.2  Compare  this  with  tho 
velocity  of  galvanic  signals,  which  Dr.  Gould 

1  See  Annual  of  Scientific  Discovery  for  1851, 
1858, 1863, 1866 ;  Journal  of  Anatomy  and  Phys 
iology,    2<1    Series,   Xo.    1,    for  November,   1867 ; 
MAREY,  Du  Mouvement  dans  les  Fonctions  de  la 
Vie,  p.  430  et  seq. 

2  Mr.  W.    F.   Barrett   calculates,  that   as   the 
mind    requires    one-tenth   of   a  second  to  form  a 
conception    and  act  accordingly,   and   as   a   rifle- 
bullet  would  require  no  more  than  one-thousandth 
of  a  second  to  pass  through  the  brain,  it  could  not 
be  felt  (An.  Sc.  Discov.,  1866-7,  p.  278).     When 
Charles  XII.  was  struck  dead  by  the  cannon-ball, 
he  clapped  his  hand  on  his  sword.     This,  however, 
may  have   probably  been   an   unconscious   reflex 
action. 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  27 

has  found  to  be  from  fourteen  to  eighteen 
thousand  miles  a  second  through  iron  wire 
on   poles,    and    about    sixty-seven    hundred 
miles  a  second  through  the  submarine  cable. 
The  brain,  according  to  Fizeau,  takes  one- 
tenth  of  a  second  to  transmit  an  order  to  the 
muscles ;  and  the  muscles  take  one-hundredth 
of  a  second  in  getting  into  motion.     These 
results,  such  as  they  are,  have  been  arrived 
at  by  experiments  on  single  individuals  with 
a  very  delicate   chronometric   apparatus.      I 
have  myself  instituted  a  good  many  experi 
ments  with  a  more  extensive  and  expensive 
machinery  than  I  think  has   ever  been  em 
ployed, —  namely,  two  classes,  each   of  ten 
intelligent  students,  who  with  joined  hands 
represented  a  nervous  circle  of  about  sixty- 
six  feet :  so  that  a  hand-pressure  transmitted 
ten  times  round  the  circle  traversed  six  hun 
dred   and   sixty  feet,  besides  involving  one 
hundred     perceptions     and    volitions.       My 
chronometer   was  a  "  horse-timer,"  marking 
quarter-seconds.       After  some  practice,  my 
second  class  gradually  reduced  the  time  of 


28  MECHANISM 

transmission  ten  times  round,  which,  like 
that  of  the  first  class,  had  stood  at  fourteen 
and  fifteen  seconds,  down  to  ten  seconds ; 
that  is,  one-tenth  of  a  second  for  the  passage 
through  the  nerves  and  brain  of  each  individ 
ual, —  less  than  the  least  time  I  have  ever 
seen  assigned  for  the  whole  operation  ;  no 
more  than  Fizeau  has  assigned  to  the  action 
of  the  brain  alone.  The  mental  process  of 
judgment  between  colors  (red,  white,  and 
green  counters),  between  rough  and  smooth 
(common  paper  and  sand-paper),  between 
smells  (camphor,  cloves,  and  assafoetida), 
took  about  three  and  a  half  tenths  of  a  second 
each  ;  taste,  twice  or  three  times  as  long,  on 
account  of  the  time  required  to  reach  the 
true  sentient  portion  of  the  tongue.1  These 
few  results  of  my  numerous  experiments 
show  the  rate  of  working  of  the  different 

1  Some  of  these  results  assign  a  longer  time* 
than  other  observers  have  found  to  be  required. 
A  little  practice  would,  materially  shorten  the  time, 
as  it  did  in  the  other  experiment. 


IN   THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  29 

parts  of  the  machinery  of  consciousness. 
Nothing  could  be  easier  than  to  calculate  the 
whole  number  of  perceptions  and  ideas  a 
man  could  have  in  the  course  of  a  lifetime.1 

1  "The  sensible  points  of  the  retina,  according 
to  Weber  and  Smith,  measure  no  more  than  the 
Fo1*)"?  mc^1  *n  Diameter.  If,  adopting  the  views  of 
Mr.  Solly,  we  consider  the  convolutions  of  the 
brain  as  made  up  of  an  extensive  surface  of  cine- 
ritious  neurine,  we  may  estimate  the  number  of 
ideas,  the  substrata  of  which  may  be  contained  in 
a  square  inch,  as  not  certainly  less  than  8,000 ; 
and,  as  there  must  be  an  immense  number  of 
square  inches  of  surface  in  the  gray  matter  ex 
tended  through  the  cerebro-spinal  axis  of  man, 
there  is  space  sufficient  for  millions." — On  the  Re 
flex  Function  of  the  Brain,  by  T.  LAYCOCK,  M.D. 
Brit,  and  For.  Med.  Review  for  January,  1845. 

Dr.  Hooke,  the  famous  English  mathematician 
and  philosopher,  made  a  calculation  of  the  number 
of  separate  ideas  the  mind  is  capable  of  entertain 
ing,  -which  he  estimated  as  3,155,760,000.  —  HAL- 
LEK  :  Elementa  Physiologies,  vol.  v.  p.  547.  The 
nerve-cells  of  the  brain  vary  in  size  fron  -3^5^  to 
3Jj  of  an  inch  in  diameter  (MARSHALL'S  Physiol- 


30  MECHANISM 

But  as  we  think  the  same  thing  over  many 
millions  of  times,  and  as  many  persons  keep 
up  their  social  relations  by  the  aid  of  a  vo 
cabulary  of  only  a  few  hundred  words,  or, 
in  the  case  of  some  very  fashionable  people, 
a  few  scores  only,  a  very  limited  amount  of 
thinking  material  may  correspond  to  a  full 
set  of  organs  of  sense,  and  a  good  develop 
ment  of  the  muscular  system.1 

ogy,  i.  77)  ;  and  the  surface  of  the  convolutions  is 
reckoned  by  Baillarger  at  about  C70  square  inches 
(ibid.,  p.  302)  ;  which,  with  a  depth  of  one-fifth  of 
an  inch,  would  give  134  cubic  inches  of  cortical 
substance,  and,  if  the  cells  average  T^y^  of  an  inch, 
would  allow  room  in  the  convolutions  for  134,000,- 
000,000  cells.  But  they  are  mingled  with  white 
nerve-fibres  and  granules.  While  these  calcula 
tions  illustrate  the  extreme  complexity  of  the 
brain-substance,  %they  are  amusing  rather  than  ex 
planatory  of  mental  phenomena,  and  belong  to 
the  province  of  Science  mousseuse,  to  use  the 
lively  expression  of  a  French  academician  at  a 
recent  session. 

1  The  use  of  slang,  or  cheap  generic  terms,  as  a 


/;V  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  31 

The  time-relation  of  the  sense  of  vision 
was  illustrated  by  Newton  by  the  familiar 

substitute  for  differentiated  specific  expressions,  is 
at  once  a  sign  and  a  cause  of  mental  atrophy.  It 
is  the  way  in  which  a  lazy  adult  shifts  the  trouble 
of  finding  any  exact  meaning  in  his  (or  her)  con 
versation  on  the  other  party.  If  both  talkers  are 
indolent,  all  their  talk  lapses  into  the  vague  gen 
eralities  of  early  childhood,  with  the  disadvantage 
of  a  vulgar  phraseology.  It  is  a  prevalent  social 
vice  of  the  time,  as  it  has  been  of  times  that 
are  past. 

"  Thus  has  he  (and  many  more  of  the  same  breed, 
that,  I  know,  the  drossy  age  dotes  on)  only  got  the 
tune  of  the  time,  and  outward  hahit  of  encounter ; 
a  kind  of  yesty  collection,  which  carries  them 
through  and  through  the  most  fond  and  winnowed 
opinions;  and,  do  but  blow  them  to  their  trial, 
the  bubbles  are  out."  —  Hamlet,  act  v.  sc.  2. 

Swift  says  (in  the  character  of  Simon  Wag- 
staff,  Esq.),  speaking  of  "witty  sentences,"  "For, 
as  long  as  my  memory  reaches,  I  do  not  recollect 
one  new  phrase  of  importance  to  have  been  added  ; 
which  defect  in  us  moderns  I  take  to  have  been 
occasioned  hy  the  introduction  of  cant-words  in 


32  MECHANISM 

experiment  of  whirling  a  burning  brand, 
which  appears  as  a  circle  of  fire.  The  dura 
tion  of  associated  impressions  on  the  memory 
differs  vastly,  as  we  all  know,  in  different 
individuals.  But,  in  uttering  distinctly  a 
series  of  unconnected  numbers  or  letters 
before  a  succession  of  careful  listeners,  I 
have  been  surprised  to  find  how  generally 
they  break  down,  in  trying  to  repeat  them, 
between  seven  and  ten  figures  or  letters ; 
though  here  and  there  an  individual  may  be 
depended  on  for  a  larger  number.  Pepys 
mentions  a  person  who  could  repeat  sixty 
unconnected  words,  forwards  or  backwards, 
and  perform  other  wonderful  feats  of  mem- 

the  reign  of  King  CHARLES  the  Second."  —  A 
Complete  Collection  of  Genteel  and  Ingenious 
Conversation,  &c.  Introduction. 

"English  is  an  expressive  language."  said  Mr. 
Pinto,  "but  not  difficult  to  master.  Its  range  is 
limited.  It  consists,  as  far  as  I  can  observe,  of 
four  words,  —  '  nice,'  '  jolly/  '  charming,'  and 
'  bore  ; '  and  some  grammarians  add  '  fond.'  "  — 
Lothair,  chap,  xxviii. 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.       33 

oiy ;  but  this  was  a  prodigy.1  I  suspect  we 
have  in  this  and  similar  trials  a  very  simple 
mental  dynamometer  which  may  yet  find  its 
place  in  education. 

Do  we  ever  think  without  knowing  that 
we  are  thinking?  The  question  may  be  dis 
guised  so  as  to  look  a  little  less  paradoxical. 
Are  there  any  mental  processes  of  which  we 
are  unconscious  at  the  time,  but  which  we 
recognize  as  having  taken  place  by  finding 
certain  results  in  our  minds  ?  2 

That  there  are  such  unconscious  mental 
actions  is  laid  down  in  the  strongest  terms 

1  This  is  nothing  to  the  story  told  by  Seneca 
of  himself,  and  still  more  of  a  friend  of  his,  one 
Portius  Latro  (Mendax,  it  might  be  suggested) ; 
or  to  that  other  relation  of  Muretus  about  a  cei- 
tain  young  Corsican.  —  See   REES'S   Cyclopaedia, 
art.  Memory ,-  also  HALLER'S  Mem.  Phys.,  v.  548, 
&c. 

2  "  Such  a  process  of  reasoning  is  more  or  less 
implicit,  and  without  the  direct  and  full  advert 
ence   of  the  mind  exercising  it."  —  J.  H.  NEW 
MAN  :  Essay  in  Aid  of  a  Grammar  of  Assent. 

3 


34  MECHANISM 

by  Leibnitz,  whose  doctrine  reverses  the 
axiom  of  Descartes  into  sum,  ergo  coyito. 
The  existence  of  unconscious  thought  is 
maintained  by  him  in  terms  we  might  fairly 
call  audacious,  and  illustrated  by  some  of  the 
most  striking  facts  bearing  upon  it.  The 
"  insensible  perceptions,"  he  says,  are  as  im 
portant  in  pneumatology  as  corpuscles  are  in 
physics. — It  does  not  follow,  he  says  again, 
that,  because  we  do  not  perceive  thought,  it 
does  not  exist.  —  Something  goes  on  in  the 
mind  which  answers  to  the  circulation  of 
the  blood  and  all  the  internal  movements  of  the 
viscera.  —  In  one  word,  it  is  a  great  source  of 
error  to  believe  that  there  is  no  perception  in 
the  mind  but  those  of  which  it  is  conscious.  — 
This  is  surely  a  sufficiently  explicit  and 
peremptory  statement  of  the  doctrine,  which, 
under  the  names  of  "latent  consciousness," 
"  obscure  perceptions,"  "  the  hidden  soul," 
"  unconscious  cerebration,"  "  reflex  action  of 
the  brain,"  has  been  of  late  years  emerging 
into  general  recognition  in  treatises  of  psy 
chology  and  physiology, 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  35 

His  allusion  to  the  circulation  of  the  blood 
and  the  movements  of  the  viscera,  as  illustrat 
ing  his  paradox  of  thinking  without  know 
ing  it,  shows  that  he  saw  the  whole  analogy 
of  the  mysterious  intellectual  movement  with 
that  series  of  reflex  actions  so  fully  described 
half  a  century  later  by  Hartley,  whose  obser 
vations,  obscured  by  wrong  interpretation  of 
the  cerebral  structure,  and  an  insufficient 
theory  of  vibrations  which  he  borrowed  from 
Newton,  are  yet  a  remarkable  anticipation  of 
many  of  the  ideas  of  modern  physiology,  for 
which  credit  has  been  given  so  liberally  to 
Unzer  and  Prochaska.  Unconscious  activity 
is  the  rule  with  the  actions  most  important 
to  life.  The  lout  who  lies  stretched  on  the 
tavern-bench,  with  just  mental  activity  enough 
to  keep  his  pipe  from  going  out,  is  the  uncon 
scious  tenant  of  a  laboratory  where  such 
combinations  are  being  constantly  made  as 
never  Wohler  or  Berthelot  could  put  to 
gether  ;  where  such  fabrics  are  woven,  such 
colors  dyed,  such  problems  of  mechanism 
solved,  such  a  commerce  carried  on  with  the 


36  MECHANISM 

elements  and  forces  of  the  outer  universe, 
that  the  industries  of  all  the  factories  and 
trading  establishments  in  the  world  are  mere 
indolence  and  awkwardness  and  unproduc 
tiveness  compared  to  the  miraculous  activities 
of  which  his  lazy  bulk  is  the  unheeding  cen 
tre.  All  these  unconscious  or  reflex  actions 
take  place  by  a  mechanism  never  more  simply 
stated  than  in  the  words  of  Hartley,  as  "  vi 
brations  which  ascend  up  the  sensory  nerves 
first,  and  then  are  detached  down  the  rnotory 
nerves,  which  communicate  with  these  by 
some  common  trunk,  plexus,  or  ganglion."  l 

1  He  goes  on  to  draw  the  distinction  between 
"  automatic  motions  of  the  secondary  kind "  and 
those  which  were  originally  automatic.  "The 
fingers -of  young  children  bend  upon  almost  every 
impression  which  is  made  upon  the  palm  of  the 
hand;  thus  performing  the  action  of  grasping  in 
the  original  automatic  manner."  ("  He  rastled 
with  my  finger,  the  blank  little  etc.  !  "  says  the 
hard  -  swearing  but  tender  -  hearted  "  Kentuck," 
speaking  of  the  new-born  babe  whose  story  Mr. 
Harte  has  told  so  touchingly  in  "The  Luck  of 


7iV   THOUGHT  AND   MORALS.  37 

The  doctrine  of  Leibnitz,  that  the  brain  may 
sometimes  act  without  our  taking  cognizance 
of  it,  as  the  heart  commonly  does,  as  many 
internal  organs  always  do,  seems  almost  to 
belong  to  our  time.  The  readers  of  Hamil 
ton  and  Mill,  of  Abercrombie,  Laycock,  and 
Maudsley,  of  Sir  John  Herschcl,  of  Carpen 
ter,  of  Lecky,  of  Dallas,  will  find  many  vari 
ations  on  the  text  of  Leibnitz,  some  new 
illustrations,  a  new  classification  and  nomen 
clature  of  the  facts ;  but  the  root  of  the 
matter  is  all  to  be  found  in  his  writings. 

Roaring  Camp.")  Hartley  traces  this  familiar 
nursery  experience  onwards,  until  the  original 
automatic  action  becomes  associated  with  sensa 
tions  and  ideas,  and  by  and  by  subject  to  the  will ; 
and  shows  still  further  how  this  and  similar  ac 
tions,  by  innumerable  repetitions,  reach  another 
stage,  "  repassing  through  the  same  degrees  in 
an  inverted  order,  till  they  become  secondarily 
automatic  on  many  ocasions,  though  still  perfectly 
voluntary  on  some ;  viz.,  whensoever  an  express  act 
of  the  will  is  exerted."  — -  Obs.  on  Man :  Propo 
sitions  xix.  xxi. 


38  MECHANISM 

I  will  give  some  instances  of  work  done  in 
the  underground  workshop  of  thought, — 
some  of  them  familiar  to  the  readers  of  the 
authors  just  mentioned. 

We  wish  to  remember  something  in  the 
course  of  conversation.  No  effort  of  the  will 
can  reach  it ;  but  we  say,  "  Wait  a  minute, 
and  it  will  come  to  me,"  and  go  on  talking. 
Presently,  perhaps  some  minutes  later,  the 
idea  we  are  in  search  of  comes  all  at  once  into 
the  mind,  delivered  like  a  prepaid  bundle, 
laid  at  the  door  of  consciousness  like  a  found 
ling  in  a  basket.  How  it  came  there  we  know 
not.  The  mind  must  have  been  at  work 
groping  and  feeling  for  it  in  the  dark :  it 
cannot  have  come  of  itself.  Yet,  all  the 
while,  our  consciousness,  so  far  as  we  are 
conscious  of  our  consciousness,  was  busy 
with  other  thoughts. 

In  old  persons,  there  is  sometimes  a  long 
interval  of  obscure  mental  action  before  the 
answer  to  a  question  is  evolved.  I  remember 
making  an  inquiry,  of  an  ancient  man  whom 
I  met  on  the  road  in  a  wagon  with  his 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  39 

daughter,  about  a  certain  old  burial-ground 
which  I  was  visiting.  He  seemed  to  listen 
attentively  ;  but  I  got  no  answer.  "  Wait 
half  a  minute  or  so,"  the  daughter  said,  "  and 
he  will  tell  you."  And  sure  enough,  after 
a  little  time,  he  answered  me,  and  to  the 
point.  The  delay  here,  probably,  corre 
sponded  to  what  machinists  call  "  lost  time," 
or  "  back  lash,"  in  turning  an  old  screw,  the 
thread  of  which  is  worn.  But,  within  a 
fortnight,  I  examined  a  young  man  for  his 
degree,  in  whom  I  noticed  a  certain  regular 
interval,  and  a  pretty  long  one,  between 
every  question  and  its  answer.  Yet  the 
answer  was,  in  almost  every  instance,  cor 
rect,  when  at  last  it  did  come.  It  was  an 
idiosyncrasy,  I  found,  which  his  previous  in 
structors  had  noticed.  I  do  not  think  the 
mind  knows  what  it  is  doing  in  the  interval, 
in  such  cases.  This  latent  period,  during 
which  the  brain  is  obscurely  at  work,  may, 
perhaps,  belong  to  mathematicians  more  than 
others.  Swift  said  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  that, 
if  one  were  to  ask  him  a  question,  "  he  would 


40  MECHANISM 

revolve  it  in  a  circle  in  his  brain,  round  and 
round  and  round "  (the  narrator  here  de 
scribing  a  circle  on  his  own  forehead),  "  be 
fore  he  could  produce  an  answer."  l 

1  have  often  spoken  of  the  same  trait  in  a 
distinguished  friend  of  my  own,  remarkable 
foi  hh  mathematical  genius,  and  compared 
his  sometimes  long-deferred  answer  to  a  ques 
tion,  with  half  a  dozen  others  stratified  over 
it,  to  the  thawing-out  of  the  frozen  words  as 
told  of  by  Baron  Munchausen  and  Rabelais, 
and  nobody  knows  how  many  others  before 
them. 

I  was  told,  within  a  week,  of  a  business-man 
in  Boston,  who,  having  an  important  question 
under  consideration,  had  given  it  up  for  the 
time  as  too  much  for  him.  But  he  was  con 
scious  of  an  action  ffoing  on  in  his  brain 

O  O 

which  was  so  unusual  and  painful  as  to  excite 
his  apprehensions  that  he  was  threatened  with 
palsy,  or  something  of  that  sort.  After  some 
hours  of  this  uneasiness,  his  perplexity  was 

1  Note  to  "A  Voyage  to  Laputa." 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  41 

all  at  once  cleared  up  by  the  natural  solution 
of  his  doubt  coining  to  him,  —  worked  out, 
as  he  believed,  in  that  obscure  and  troubled 
interval. 

The  cases  are  numerous  where  questions 
have  been  answered,  or  problems  solved,  in 
dreams,  or  during  unconscious  sleep.  Two  of 
our  most  distinguished  professors  in  this  insti 
tution  have  had  such  an  experience,  as  they 
tell  me  ;  and  one  of  them  has  often  assured  me 
that  he  never  dreams.  Somnambulism  and 
double-consciousness  offer  another  series  of 
illustrations.  Many  of  my  audience  remem 
ber  a  murder-case,  where  the  accused  was  suc 
cessfully  defended,  on  the  ground  of  somnam 
bulism,  by  one  of  the  most  brilliant  of  Ameri 
can  lawyers.  In  the  3- ear  1686,  a  brother  of 
Lord  Culpeper  was  indicted  at  the  Old  Bailey 
for  shooting  one  of  the  guards,  and  acquitted 
on  the  same  ground  of  somnambulism  ;  that  is, 
an  unconscious,  and  therefore  irresponsible, 
state  of  activity.1 

1  DALLAS  :  The  Gay  Science,  i.  324. 


42  MECHANISM 

A  more  familiar  instance  of  unconscious  ac 
tion  is  to  be  found  in  what  we  call  "  absent " 
persons,  —  those  who,  while  wide  awake,  act 
with  an  apparent  purpose,  but  without  really 
knowing  what  they  are  doing ;  as  in  La 
Bruyere's  character,  who  threw  his  glass  of 
wine  into  the  backgammon-board,  and  swal 
lowed  the  dice. 

There  are  a  vast  number  of  movements 
which  we  perform  with  perfect  regularity 
while  we  are  thinking  of  something  quite  dif 
ferent, —  "automatic  actions  of  the  secondary 
kind,"  as  Hartley  calls  them,  and  of  which 
he  gives  various  examples.  The  old  woman 
knits ;  the  young  woman  stitches,  or  perhaps 
plays  her  piano,  and  yet  talks  away  as  if  noth 
ing  but  her  tongue  was  busy.  Two  lovers 
stroll  along  side  by  side,  just  born  into  the 
rosy  morning  of  their  new  life,  prattling  the 
sweet  follies  worth  all  the  wisdom  that  years 
will  ever  bring  them.  How  much  do  they 
think  about  that  wonderful  problem  of  bal 
anced  progression  which  they  solve  anew  at 
every  step  ? 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  43 

We  are  constantly  finding  results  of  unper- 
ceived  mental  processes  in  our  consciousness. 
Here  is  a  striking  instance,  which  I  borrow 
'from  a  recent  number  of  an  English  jour 
nal.  It  relates  to  what  is  considered  the 
most  interesting  period  of  incubation  in  Sir 
William  Rowan  Hamilton's  discovery  of  qua 
ternions.  The  time  was  the  15th  of  October, 
1843.  On  that  day,  he  says  in  a  letter  to  a 
friend,  he  was  walking  from  his  observatory 
to  Dublin  with  Lady  Hamilton,  when,  on 
reaching  Brougham  Bridge,  he  "  felt  the 
galvanic  circle  of  thought  close  ;  and  the 
sparks  that  fell  from  it  were  the  fundamental 
relations  between  i,  j,  k,"  just  as  he  used 
them  ever  afterwards.1 

Still  another  instance  of  the  spontaneous 
evolution  of  thought  we  may  find  in  the  ex 
perience  of  a  great  poet.  When  Goethe  shut 
his  eyes,  and  pictured  a  flower  to  himself,  he 
says  that  it  developed  itself  before  him  in 

1  Nature,  Feb.  7,  1870,  p.  407 ;  North  British 
Review,  September,  1866,  p.  57. 


44 


leaves  and  blossoms.1  The  result  of  the 
mental  process  appeared  as  pictured  thought , 
but  the  process  itself  was  automatic  and 
imperceptible. 

There  are  thoughts  that  never  emerge  into 
consciousness,  which  yet  make  their  influence 
felt  among  the  perceptible  mental  currents, 
just  as  the  unseen  planets  sway  the  move 
ments  of  those  which  are  watched  and  mapped 
by  the  astronomer.  Old  prejudices,  that  are 
ashamed  to  confess  themselves,  nudge  our 
talking  thought  to  utter  their  magisterial 
veto.  In  hours  of  languor,  as  Mr.  Lecky 
has  remarked,  the  beliefs  and  fancies  of  ob 
solete  conditions  are  apt  to  take  advantage 
of  us.2  We  know  very  little  of  the  contents 
of  our  minds  until  some  sudden  jar  brings 
them  to  light,  as  an.  earthquake  that  shakes 
down  a  miser's  house  brings  out  the  old 
stockings  full  of  gold,  and  all  the  hoards 
that  have  hid  away  in  holes  and  crannies. 

1  Mailer's  Physiology  (Baly's  translation),  vol. 
ii.  p.  1364. 

2  History  of  Rationalism,  ii.  96,  note. 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  45 

We  not  rarely  find  our  personality  doubled 
in  our  dreams,  and  do  battle  with  ourselves, 
unconscious  that  we  are  our  own  antagonists. 
Dr.  Johnson  dreamed  that  he  had  a  contest 
of  wit  with  an  opponent,  and  got  the  worst 
of  it :  of  course,  he  furnished  the  wit  for  both. 
Tartini  heard  the  Devil  play  a  wonderful  so 
nata,  and  set  it  down  on  awaking.  Who  was 
the  Devil  but  Tartini  himself  ?  I  remember, 
in  my  youth,  reading  verses  in  a  dream,  writ 
ten,  as  I  thought,  by  a  rival  fledgling  of  the 
Muse.  They  were  so  far  beyond  my  powers, 
that  I  despaired  of  equalling  them ;  yet  I 
must  have  made  them  unconsciously  as  I 
read  them.  Could  I  only  have  remembered 
them  waking ! 

But  I  must  here  add  another  personal  ex 
perience,  of  which  I  will  say  beforehand,  — 
somewhat  as  honest  Izaak  Walton  said  of  his 
pike,  "  This  dish  of  meat  is  too  good  for  any 
but  anglers  or  very  honest  men,"  —  this 
story  is  good  only  for  philosophers  and  very 
small  children.  I  will  merely  hint  to  the 
former  class  of  thinkers,  that  its  moral  bears 


46  MECHANISM 

on  two  points :  first,  the  value  of  our  self- 
estimate,  sleeping,  —  possibly,  also,  waking  ; 
secondly,  the  significance  of  general  formulae 
when  looked  at  in  certain  exalted  mental 
conditions. 

I  once  inhaled  a  pretty  full  dose  of  ether, 
with  the  determination  to  put  on  record,  at 
the  earliest  moment  of  regaining  conscious 
ness,  the  thought  I  should  find  uppermost 
in  my  mind.  The  mighty  music  of  the  tri 
umphal  march  into  nothingness  reverberated 
through  my  brain,  and  filled  me  with  a  sense 
of  infinite  possibilities,  which  made  me  an 
archangel  for  the  moment.  The  veil  of  eter 
nity  was  lifted.  The  one  great  truth  which 
underlies  all  human  experience,  and  is  the* 
key  to  all  the  mysteries  that  philosophy  has 
sought  in  vain  to  solve,  flashed  upon  me  in  a 
sudden  revelation.  Henceforth  all  was  clear : 
a  few  words  had  lifted  my  intelligence  to  the 
level  of  the  knowledge  of  the  cherubim.  As 
my  natural  condition  returned,  I  remembered 
my  resolution  ;  and,  staggering  to  my  desk,  I 
wrote,  in  ill-shaped,  straggling  characters,  the 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.       47 

all-embracing  truth  still  glimmering  in  my 
consciousness.  The  words  were  these  (chil 
dren  may  smile  ;  the  wise  will  ponder)  :  "  A 
strong  smell  of  turpentine  prevails  throughout" l 
My  digression  has  served  at  least  to  illus 
trate  the  radical  change  which  a  slight  mate 
rial  cause  may  produce  in  our  thoughts,  and 
the  way  we  think  about  them.  If  the  state 
just  described  were  prolonged,  it  would  be 
called  insanity.2  I  have  no  doubt  that  there 

1  Sir  Humphry  Davy  has   related   an   experi 
ence,  which  I  had  forgotten  when  I  recorded  my 
own.     After  inhaling  nitrous-oxide   gas,  he   says, 
"  With  the  most  intense  belief  and  prophetic  man 
ner,  I  exclaimed  to  Dr.  Kingslake,  'Nothing  exists 
but  thoughts.      The  universe  is  composed  of  im 
pressions,  ideas,  pleasures,  and  pains.'" —  Works, 
London,  1839,  vol.  iii.  p.  200. 

2  We  are  often  insane  at  the  moment  of  awak 
ing  from  sleep.     "  '  I  have  desired  Apronia  to  be 
always  careful,  especially  about  the  legs.'     1'ray,  do 
you  see  any  such  great  wit  in  that  sentence  ?     I 
must  freely  own  that  I  do  not.     Pray,  read  it  over 
again,  and   consider   it.     Why  —  ay  —  you    must 


48  MECHANISM 

are  many  ill-organized,  perhaps  over-organ 
ized,  human  brains,  to  which  the  common  air 
is  what  the  vapor  of  ether  was  to  mine  :  it  is 
madness  to  them  to  drink  in  this  terrible 
burning  oxygen  at  every  breath ;  and  the 
atmosphere  that  infolds  them  is  like  the 
flaming  shirt  of  Nessus. 

The  more  we  examine  the  mechanism  of 
thought,  the  more  we  shall  see  that  the  auto 
matic,  unconscious  action  of  the  mind  enters 
largely  into  all  its  processes.  Our  definite 

know  that  I  dreamed  it  just  now,  and  waked  with 
it  in  my  mouth.  Are  you  bit,  or  are  you  not, 
sirrahs  ?  "  —  SWIFT'S  Journal  to  Stella,  Letter 
xv. 

Even  when  wide  awake,  so  keen  and  robust  a 
mind  as  Swift's  was  capable  of  a  strange  moment 
ary  aberration  in  the  days  of  its  full  vigor.  "  I 
have  my  mouth  full  of  water,  and  was  going  to  spit 
it  out,  because  I  reasoned  with  myself,  '  How  could 
I  write  wben  my  mouth  was  full  ?  '  Have  you  not 
done  things  like  that,  —  reasoned  wrong  at  first 
thinking  ?  " —  Ibid.,  Letter  viii. 

All  of  us  must  have  had  similar  experiences. 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  49 

ideas  are  stepping-stones  ;  how  we  get  from 
one  to  the  other,  we  do  not  know :  something 
carries  us  ;  we  do  not  take  the  step.  A  cre 
ating  and  informing  spirit  which  is  with  us, 
and  not  of  us,  is  recognized  everywhere  in 
real  and  in  storied  life.  It  is  the  Zeus  that 
kindled  the  rage  of  Achilles  ;  it  is  the  Muse 
of  Homer ;  it  is  the  Daimon  of  Socrates ;  it 
is  the  inspiration  of  the  seer ;  it  is  the  mock 
ing  devil  that  whispers  to  Margaret  as  she 
kneels  at  the  altar ;  and  the  hobgoblin  that 
cried,  "  Sell  him,  sell  him !  "  in  the  ear  of 
John  Bunyan  :  it  shaped  the  forms  that  filled 
the  soul  of  Michael  Angelo  when  he  saw  the 
figure  of  the  great  Lawgiver  in  the  yet  un 
hewn  marble,  and  the  dome  of  the  world's 
yet  unbuilt  basilica  against  the  blank  hori 
zon  ;  it  comes  to  the  least  of  us,  as  a  voice 
that  will  be  heard  ;  it  tells  us  what  we  must 
believe  ;  it  frames  our  sentences ;  it  lends  a 
sudden  gleam  of  sense  or  eloquence  to  the 
dullest  of  us  all,  so  that,  like  Katterfelto 
with  his  hair  on  end,  we  wonder  at  ourselves, 
or  rather  not  at  ourselves,  but  at  this  divine 

4 


50  MECHANISM 

visitor,  who  chooses  our  brain  as  his  dwell 
ing-place,    and    invests   our  naked    thought 
with  the  purple  of  the  kings  of  speech  or 
song. 

After  all,  the  mystery  of  unconscious 
mental  action  is  exemplified,  as  I  have  said, 
in  every  act  of  mental  association.  What 
happens  when  one  idea  brings  up  another  ? 
Some  internal  movement,  of  which  we  are 
wholly  unconscious,  and  which  we  only 
know  by  its  effect.  What  is  this  action, 
which  in  Dame  Quickly  agglutinates  contigu 
ous  circumstances  by  their  surfaces ;  in  men 
of  wit  and  fancy,  connects  remote  ideas  by 
partial  resemblances  ;  in  men  of  imagination, 
by  the  vital  identity  which  underlies  phenom 
enal  diversity ;  in  the  man  of  science,  groups 
the  objects  of  thought  in  sequences  of  maxi 
mum  resemblance  ?  Not  one  of  them  can 
answer.  There  is  a  Delphi  and  a  Pythoness 
in'  every  human  breast. 

The  poet  sits  down  to  his  desk  with  an  odd 
conceit  in  his  brain ;  and  presently  his  eyes 
fill  with  tears,  his  thought  slides  into  the 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  51 

minor  key,  and  his  heart  is  full  of  sad 
and  plaintive  melodies.  Or  he  goes  to  his 
work,  saying,  "  To-night  I  would  have 
tears ;."  and,  before  he  rises  from  his  table,  he 
has  written  a  burlesque,  such  as  he  might 
think  fit  to  send  to  one  of  the  comic  papers, 
if  these  were  not  so  commonly  cemeteries  of 
hilarity  interspersed  with  cenotaphs  of  wit 
and  humor.  These  strange  hysterics  of  the 
intelligence,  which  make  us  pass  from  weep 
ing  to  laughter,  and  from  laughter  back  again 
to  weeping,  must  be  familiar  to  every  im 
pressible  nature ;  and  all  is  as  automatic, 
involuntary,  as  entirely  self-evolved  by  a  hid 
den  organic  process,  as  are  the  changing 
moods  of  the  laughing  and  crying  woman. 
The  poet  always  recognizes  a  dictation  ab 
extra;  and  we  hardly  think  it  a  figure 
of  speech  when  we  talk  of  his  inspira 
tion. 

The  mental  attitude  of  the  poet  while  writ 
ing,  if  I  may  venture  to  define  it,  is  that  of 
the  "  nun,  breathless  with  adoration."  Men 
tal  stillness  is  the  first  condition  of  the  listen- 


52  MECHANISM 

ing  state  ;  and  I  think  my  friends  the  poets 
will  recognize  that  the  sense  of  effort,  which 
is  often  felt,  accompanies  the  mental  spasm 
by  which  the  mind  is  maintained  in  a  state  at 
once  passive  to  the  influx  from  without,  and 
active  in  seizing  only  that  which  will  serve 
its  purpose.1  It  is  not  strange  that-  remem- 

1  Burns  tells  us  how  he  composed  verses  for  a 
given  tune :  — 

"  My  way  is,  I  consider  the  poetic  sentiment 
correspondent  to  my  idea  of  the  musical  expres 
sion  ;  then  choose  my  theme ;  begin  one  stanza. 
When  that  is  composed,  which  is  generally  the 
most  difficult  part  of  the  business,  I  walk  out,  sit 
down  now  and  then,  look  out  for  objects  in  Nature 
that  are  in  unison  or  harmony  with  the  cogitations 
of  my  fancy,  and  workings  of  my  bosom ;  hum 
ming  every  now  and  then  the  air  with  the  verses 
I  have  framed.  When  I  feel  my  Muse  beginning 
to  jade,  I  retire  to  the  solitary  fireside  of  my 
study,  and  tljere  commit  my  effusions  to  paper ; 
swinging  at  intervals  on  the  hind-legs  of  my 
elbow-chair,  by  way  of  calling  forth  my  own  criti 
cal  strictures,  as  my  pen  goes  on."  —  Letters  to  G. 
Thomson,  No.  xxxvii. 


IN   THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  53 

bered  ideas  should  often  take  advantage  of 
the  crowd  of  thoughts,  and  smuggle  them 
selves  in  as  original.  Honest  thinkers  are 
always  stealing  unconsciously  from  each 
other.  Our  minds  are  full  of  waifs  and  es- 
trays  which  we  think  are  our  own.  Inno 
cent  plagiarism  turns  up  everywhere.  Our 
best  musical  critic  tells  me  that  a  few  notes 
of  the  air  of  "  Shoo  Fly  "  are  borrowed  from 
a  movement  in  one  of  the  magnificent  har 
monies  of  Beethoven.1 

1  One  or  two  instances  where  the  same  idea  is 
found  in  different  authors  may  be  worth  mention 
ing  in  illustration  of  the  remark  just  made.  We 
are  familiar  with  the  saying,  that  the  latest  days 
are  the  old  age  of  the  world. 

Mr.  Lewes  finds  this  in  Lord  Bacon's  writings, 
in  Roger  Bacon's  also,  and  traces  it  back  as  far  as 
Seneca.  I  find  it  in  Pascal  (Preface  sur  le  Traite 
du  Vide) ;  and  Hobbes  says,  "  If  we  will  reverence 
the  ages,  the  present  is  the  oldest."  So,  too,  Ten 
nyson  :  — 

"  For  we  are  ancients  of  the  earth, 
And  in  the  morning  of  the  times." 

The  Day-Dream :  L'Envoi 


54  MECHANISM 

And  so  the  orator,  —  I  do  not  mean  the 
poor  slave  of  a  manuscript,  who  takes  his 
thought  chilled  and  stiffened  from  its  mould, 
but  the  impassioned  speaker  who  pours  it 

Here  are  several  forms  of  another  familiar 
thought : — 

"  And  what  if  all  of  animated  nature 
Be  but  organic  harps  diversely  framed, 
That  tremble  into  thought  as  o'er  them  sweeps, 
Plastic  and  vast,  one  intellectual  breeze, 
At  once  the  soul  of  each,  and  God  of  all  ?  " 

COLERIDGE  :  The  sEolian  Harp. 

"  Are  we  a  piece  of  machinery,  which,  like  the 
^Eolian  harp,  passive,  takes  the  impression  of  the 
passing  accident?"  —  BURNS  TO  MRS.  DUNLOP: 
Letter  148. 

"  Un  seul  esprit,  qui  est  universel  et  qui  anime 
tout  1'univers,  —  comme  un  meme  souffle  de  vent 
fait  sonner  differemment  divers  tuyaux  d'orgue."  — 
LEIBNITZ  :  Considerations  sur  la  Doctrine  d'un  Es 
prit  Universel. 

Literature  is  full  of  such  coincidences,  which 
some  love  to  believe  plagiarisms.  There  are 
thoughts  always  abroad  in  the  air,  which  it  takes 
more  wit  to  avoid  than  to  hit  upon,  as  the  solitary 
"Address  without  a  Phoenix "  may  remind  those 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  55 

forth  as  it  flows  coruscating  from  the  fur 
nace, —  the  orator  only  becomes  our  mas 
ter  at  the  moment  when  he  himself  is  sur 
prised,  captured,  taken  possession  of,  by  a 
sudden  rush  of  fresh  inspiration.  How  well 

critical  ant-eaters  whose  aggressive  feature  is  drawn 
to  too  fine  a  point. 

Old  stories  reproduce  themselves  in  a  singular 
way,  —  not  only  in  such  authors  as  Mr.  Joseph 
Miller,  but  among  those  whom  we  cannot  for  a 
moment  suspect  of  conscious  misappropriation. 
Here  is  an  instance  forced  upon  my  attention. 
In  the  preface  to  "  The  Guardian  Angel,"  I 
quoted  a  story  from  Sprague's  "  Annals  of  the 
American  Pulpit,"  which  is  there  spoken  of  as 
being  told,  by  Jonathan  Edwards  the  younger,  of  a 
brutal  fellow  in  New  Haven.  Some  one  found  a 
similar  story  in  a  German  novel,  and  mentioned 
the  coincidence.  The  true  original,  to  which  I 
was  directed  by  Dr.  Elam's  book,  "  A  Physician's 
Problems,"  is  to  be  found  in  the  seventh  chapter 
of  the  seventh  book  of  Aristotle's  Ethics.  My 
Latin  version  renders  it  thus :  "  Et  qui  a  filio  tra- 
hebatur  traheiidi  finem  jubebat  ad  foreis,  nam  a  se 
quoque  ad  hunc  locum  patrem  suum  tractuin  esse." 


56  MECHANISM 

we  know  the  flash  of  the  eye,  the  thrill 
of  the  voice,  which  are  the  signature  and 
symbol  of  nascent  thought,  —  thought  just 
emerging  into  consciousness,  in  which  con 
dition,  as  is  the  case  with  the  chemist's  ele 
ments,  it  has  a  combining  force  at  other  times 
wholly  unknown ! 

But  we  are  all  more  or  less  improvisators. 
We  all  have  a  double,  who  is  wiser  and 
better  than  we  are,  and  who  puts  thoughts 
into  our  heads,  and  words  into  our  mouths. 
Do  we  not  all  commune  with  our  own  hearts 
upon  our  beds?  Do  we  not  all  divide  our 
selves,  and  go  to  buffets  on  questions  of  right 
or  wrong,  of  wisdom  or  folly?  Who  or 
what  is  it  that  resolves  the  stately  parliament 
of  the  day,  with  all  its  forms  and  convention 
alities  and  pretences,  and  the  great  Me  presid 
ing,  into  the  committee  of  the  whole,  with 
Conscience  in  the  chair,  that  holds  its  solemn 
session  through  the  watches  of  the  night  ? 

Persons  who  talk  most  do  not  always  think 
most.  I  question  whether  persons  who  think 
most  —  that  is,  have  most  conscious  thought 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  57 

pass  through  their  minds  —  necessarily  do 
most  mental  work.  The  tree  you  are  stick 
ing  in  "  will  be  growing  when  you  are  sleep 
ing."  So  with  every  new  idea  that  is  planted 
in  a  real  thinker's  mind  :  it  will  be  growing 
when  he  is  least  conscious  of  it.  An  idea  in 
the  brain  is  not  a  legend  carved  on  a  marble 
slab:  it  is  an  impression  made  on  a  living 
tissue,  which  is  the  seat  of  active  nutritive 
processes.  Shall  the  initials  I  carved  in  bark 
increase  from  year  to  year  with  the  tree  ?  and 
shall  not  my  recorded  thought  develop  into 
new  forms  and  relations  with  my  growing 
brain  ?  Mr.  Webster  told  one  of  our  greatest 
scholars  that  he  had  to  change  the  size  of 
his  hat  every  few  years.  His  head  grew 
larger  as  his  intellect  expanded.  Illustra 
tions  of  this  same  fact  were  shown  me  many 
years  ago  by  Mr.  Deville,  the  famous  phre 
nologist,  in  London.  But  organic  mental 
changes  may  take  place  in  shorter  spaces  of 
time.  A  single  night  of  sleep  has  often 
brought  a  sober  second-thought,  which  was  a 
surprise  to  the  hasty  conclusion  of  the  day 


58  MECHANISM 

before.  Lord  Polkommet's  description  of 
the  way  lie  prepared  himself  for  a  judicial 
decision  is  in  point,  except  for  the  alcoholic 
fertilizer  he  employed  in  planting  his  ideas : 
"  Ye  see,  I  first  read  a'  the  pleadings ;  and 
then,  after  letting  them  wamble  in  my  wame 
wi'  the  toddy  two  or  three  days,  I  gie  my  am 
interlocutor."  l 

The  counterpart  of  this  slow  process  is 
found  in  the  ready,  spontaneous,  automatic, 
self-sustaining,  continuous  flow  of  thought, 
well  illustrated  in  a  certain  form  of  dialogue, 
which  seems  to  be  in  a  measure  peculiar  to 
the  female  sex.  The  sternest  of  our  sisters 
will,  I  hope,  forgive  me  for  telling  the  way 
in  which  this  curious  fact  was  forced  upon 
my  notice. 

I  was  passing  through  a  somewhat  obscure 
street  at  the  west  end  of  our  city  a  year  or 
two  since,  when  my  attention  was  attracted 
to  a  narrow  court  by  a  sound  of  voices  and  a 

1  Dean  Ramsay's  Reminiscences  of  Scottish 
Life  and  Character,  p.  126. 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  59 

small  crowd  of  listeners.  From  two  open 
windows  on  the  opposite  sides  of  the  court 
projected  the  heads,  and  a  considerable  por 
tion  of  the  persons,  of  two  of  the  sex  in 
question,  —  natives,  both  of  them,  apparently, 
of  the  green  isle  famous  for  shamrocks  and 
shillalahs.  They  were  engaged  in  argument, 
if  that  is  argument  in  which  each  of  the 
two  parties  develops  his  proposition  without 
the  least  regard  to  what  the  other  is  at  the 
same  time  saying.  The  question  involved 
was  the  personal,  social,  moral,  and,  in  short, 
total  standing  and  merit  of  the  two  contro 
versialists  and  their  respective  families.  But 
the  strange  phenomenon  was  this :  The 
two  women,  as  if  by  preconcerted  agreement, 
like  two  instruments  playing  a  tune  in 
unison,  were  pouring  forth  simultaneously 
a  calm,  steady,  smooth-flowing  stream  of 
mutual  undervaluation,  to  apply  a  mild 
phrase  to  it ;  never  stopping  for  punctuation, 
and  barely  giving  themselves  time  to  get 
breath  between  its  long-drawn  clauses.  The 
dialogue  included  every  conceivable  taunt 


60  MECHANISM 

which  might  rouse  the  fury  of  a  sensitive 
mother  of  a  family,  whose  allegiance  to  her 
lord,  and  pride  in  her  offspring,  were  points 
which  it  displeased  her  to  have  lightly 
handled.  I  stood  and  listened  like  the  quiet 
groups  in  the  more  immediate  neighborhood. 
I  looked  for  some  explosion  of  violence,  for 
a  screaming  volley  of  oaths,  for  an  hysteric 
burst  of  tears,  perhaps  for  a  missile  of  more 
questionable  character  than  an  epithet  aimed 
at  the  head  and  shoulders  projecting  opposite. 
"  At  any  rate,"  I  thought,  "  their  tongues  will 
soon  run  down  ;  for  it  is  not  in  human  nature 
that  such  a  flow  of  scalding  rhetoric  can  be 
kept  up  very  long."  But  I  stood  waiting 
until  I  was  tired ;  and,  with  labitur  et  labetur 
on  my  lips,  I  left  them  pursuing  the  even 
tenor,  or  treble,  of  their  way  in  a  duet 
which  seemed  as  if  it  might  go  on  until 
nightfall. 

I  came  away  thinking  I  had  discovered  a 
new  national  custom,  as  peculiar,  and  proba 
bly  as  limited,  as  the  Corsican  vendetta.  But 
I  have  since  found  that  the  same  scolding 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  61 

duets  take  place  between  the  women  in  an 
African  kraal.  A  couple  of  them  will  thrust 
their  bodies  half  out  of  their  huts,  and 
exhaust  the  vocabulary  of  the  native  Wor 
cester  and  Webster  to  each  other's  detriment, 
while  the  bystanders  listen  with  a  sympathy 
which  often  leads  to  a  general  disturbance.1 
And  I  find  that  Homer  was  before  us  all  in 
noticing  this  curious  logomachy  of  the  un- 
warlike  sex.  ^Eneas  says  to  Achilles  after 
an  immensely  long-winded  discourse,  which 
Creiisa  could  hardly  have  outdone,  — 

"  But  why  in  wordy  and  contentious  strife 
Need  we  each  other  scold,  as  women  use, 
Who,  with  some  heart-consuming  anger  wroth, 
Stand  in  the  street,  and  call  each  other  names, 
Some  true,  some  false  ;  for  so 'their  rage  commands  ?  " 2 

1  Uncivilized   Races  of  Men.     By  Rev.  J.  G. 
Wood.     Vol.  i.  p.  213. 

2  Iliad,  xx.  251-255.    And  Tennyson  speaks  of 

"  Those  detestable 

That  let  the  bantling  scald  at  home,  and  brawl 
Their  rights  or  wrongs  like  pot-herbs  in  the  street." 

The  Princess,  323. 


62  MECHANISM 

I  confess  that  the  recollection  of  the  two 
women,  drifting  upon  their  vocabularies  as 
on  a  shoreless  ocean,  filled  ine  at  first  with 
apprehension  as  to  the  possible  future  of  our 
legislative  assemblies.  But,  in  view  of  what 
our  own  sex  accomplishes  in  the  line  of 
mutual  vituperation,  perhaps  the  feminine 
arrangement,  by  which  the  two  save  time 
by  speaking  at  once,  and  it  is  alike  impossible 
for  either  to  hear  the  other,  and  for  the  audi 
ence  to  hear  them  both,  might  be  considered 
an  improvement. 

The  automatic  flow  of  thought  is  often 
singularly  favored  by  .the  fact  of  listening 
to  a  weak,  continuous  discourse,  with  just 
enough  ideas  in  it  to  keep  the  mind  busy  on 
something  else.  The  induced  current  of 
thought  is  often  rapid  and  brilliant  in  the 
inverse  ratio  of  the  force  of  the  inducing  cur 
rent. 

The  vast  amount  of  blood  sent  to  the 
brain  implies  a  corresponding  amount  of 
material  activity  in  the  organ.  In  point  of 
fact,  numerous  experiments  have  shown  (and 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  63 

I  may  refer  particularly  to  those  of  our  own 
countrymen,  —  Professors  Flint,  Hammond, 
and  Lombard)  that  the  brain  is  the  seat  of 
constant  nutritive  changes,  which  are  greatly 
increased  by  mental  exertion. 

The  mechanical  co-efficient  of  mental  ac 
tion  may  be  therefore  considered  a  molecular 
movement  in  the  nervous  centres,  attended 
with  waste  of  material  conveyed  thither  in 
the  form  of  blood,  —  not  a  mere  tremor  like 
the  quiver  of  a  bell,  but  a  process  more  like 
combustion  ;  the  blood  carrying  off  the  oxi 
dated  particles,  and  bringing  in  fresh  matter 
to  take  their  place. 

This  part  of  the  complex  process  must,  of 
course,  enter  into  the  category  of  the  corre 
lated  forces.  The  brain  must  be  fed  in 
order  to  work  ;  and  according  to  the  amount 
of  waste  of  material  will  be  that  of  the  food 
required  to  repair  losses.  So  much  logic,  so 
much  beef;  so  much  poetry,  so  much  pud 
ding  :  and,  as  we  all  know  that  all  growing 
things  are  but  sponges  soaked  full  of  old 


64  MECHANISM 

sunshine,  Apollo  becomes  as  important  in  the 
world  of  letters  as  ever.1 

But  the  intellectual  product  does  not 
belong  to  the  category  of  force  at  all,  as  de 
nned  by  physicists.  It  does  not  answer  their 
definition  as  "that  which  is  expended  in 
producing  or  resisting  motion."  It  is  not 
reconvertible  into  other  forms  of  force.  One 
cannot  lift  a  weight  with  a  logical  demon 
stration,  or  make  a  tea-kettle  boil  by  writing 
an  ode  to  it.  A  given  amount  of  molecular 
action  in  two  brains  represents  a  certain 
equivalent  of  food,  but  by  no  means  an 
equivalent  of  intellectual  product.  Bavius 
and  Maevius  were  very  probably  as  good 
feeders  as  Virgil  and  Horace,  and  wasted  as 
much  brain-tissue  in  producing  their  carmina 
as  the  two  great  masters  wasted  in  producing 
theirs.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  the 
present  Laureate  of  England  consumed  more 

1  It  is  curious  to  compare  the  Laputan  idea 
of  extracting  sunbeams  from  cucumbers  with 
George  Stephenson's  famous  saying  about  coal. 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  65 

oxidable  material  in  the  shape  of  nourish 
ment  for  every  page  of  "  Maud  "  or  of  "In 
Memoriam "  than  his  predecessor  Nahum 
Tate,  whose  masterpiece  gets  no  better 
eulogy  than  that  it  is  "  the  least  miserable 
of  his  productions,"  in  eliminating  an  equal 
amount  of  verse.1 

As  mental  labor,  in  distinction  from  the 
passive  flow  of  thought,  implies  an  exercise 
of  will,  and  as  mental  labor  is  shown  to  be 
attended  by  an  increased  waste,  the  pre- 

1  "  Sur  un  meme  papier,  avec  la  meme  plume  et 
la  meme  encre,  en  remuant  tant  soit  peu  le  bout 
de  la  plume  en  certaine  facjon,  vous  tracez  des 
lettres  qui  font  imaginer  des  combats,  des  tempetes 
ou  des  furies  a  ceux  qui  les  lisent,  et  qui  les  rendent 
indignes  ou  tristes ;  au  lieu  que  si  vous  remuez  la 
plume  d'une  autre  fa$on  presque  sernblable,  la  seule 
difference  qui  sera  en  ce  peu  de  mouvement 
leur  peut  donner  des  pensees  toutes  contraires, 
comme  de  paix,  de  repos,  de  douceur,  et  exciter 
en  eux  des  passions  d'amour  et  de  joie." — DES 
CARTES  :  Principes  de  Philosophic,  4eme  Partie, 
§197. 

6 


66  MECHANISM 

sumption  is  that  this  waste  is  in  some  degree 
referable  to  the  material  requirements  of  the 
act  of  volition.  We  see  why  the  latter 
should  be  attended  by  a  sense  of  effort,  and 
followed  by  a  feeling  of  fatigue. 

A  question  is  suggested  by  the  definition 
of  the  physicists.  What  is  that  which 
changes  the  form  of  force  ?  Electricity  leaves 
what  we  call  magnetism  in  iron,  after  passing 
through  it :  what  name  shall  we  give  to  that 
virtue  in  iron  which  causes  the  force  we 
know  as  electricity  thus  to  manifest  itself  by 
a  precipitate,  so  to  speak,  of  new  properties  ? 
Why  may  we  not  speak  of  a  vis  ferrea  as 
causing  the  change  in  consequence  of 
which  a  bar  through  which  an  electrical  cur 
rent  has  flowed  becomes  capable  of  attracting 
iron  and  of  magnetizing  a  million  other  bars  ? 
And  so  why  may  not  a  particular  brain, 
through  which  certain  nutritious  currents 
have  flowed,  fix  a  force  derived  from  these 
currents  in  virtue  of  a  vis  Platonica  or  a  vis 
Baconica,  and  thus  become  a  magnet  in  the 
universe  of  thought,  exercising  and  imparting 


IN   THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  67 

an  influence  which  is  not  expended,  in  addi 
tion  to  that  accounted  for  by  the  series  of 
molecular  changes  in  the  thinking  organ  ? 

We  must  not  forget,  that  force-equivalent 
is  one  thing,  and  quality  of  force-product  is 
quite  a  different  thing.  The  same  outlay  of 
muscular  exertion  turns  the  winch  of  a 
coffee-mill  and  of  a  hand-organ.  It  has  been 
said  that  thought  cannot  be  a  physical  force, 
because  it  cannot  be  measured.  An  attempt 
has  been  made  to  measure  thought  as  we 
measure  force.  I  have -two  tables,  one  from 
the  "Annales  Encyclopediques,"  and  another, 
earlier  and  less  minute,  by  the  poet  Akenside, 
in  which  the  poets  are  classified  according  to 
their  distinctive  qualities;  each  quality  and 
the  total  average  being  marked  on  a  scale  of 
twenty  as  a  maximum.  I  am  not  sure  that 
mental  qualities  are  not  as  susceptible  of 
measurement  as  the  aurora  borealis  or  the 
changes  of  the  weather.  But  even  measura 
ble  quality  has  no  more  to  do  with  the 
correlation  of  forces  than  the  color  of  a 
horse  with  his  power  of  draught ;  and  it  is 


68  MECHANISM 

with  quality  we  more  especially  deal  in  in 
tellect  and  morals. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  material  or  physio 
logical  co-efficient  of  thought  as  being  indis 
pensable  for  its'  exercise  during  the  only 
condition  of  existence  of  which,  apart  from 
any  alleged  spiritualistic  experience,  we  have 
any  personal  knowledge.  We  know  our 
dependence  too  well  from  seeing,  so  many 
gallant  and  well-freighted  minds  towed  in 
helpless  after  a  certain  time  of  service,  — 
razees  at  sixty,  dismantled  at  seventy,  going 
to  pieces  and  sinking  at  fourscore.  We 
recognize  in  ourselves  the  loss  of  mental 
power,  slight  or  serious,  from  grave  or  tri 
fling  causes.  "  Good  God,"  said  Swift, 
"  what  a  genius  I  had  when  I  wrote  that 
book  !  "  And  I. remember  that  an  ingenious 
tailor  of  the  neighboring  city,  on  seeing  a 
customer  leave  his  shop  without  purchasing, 
exclaimed,  smiting  his  forehead,  "If  it  had 
not  been  for  this  —  emphatically  character 
ized  —  headache,  I'd  have  had  a  coat  on  that 
man  before  he'd  got  out  over  my  doorstep." 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  69 

Such  is  the  delicate  adjustment  of  the  intel 
lectual  apparatus  by  the  aid  of  which  we 
clothe  our  neighbor,  whether  he  will  or  no, 
with  our  thoughts  if  we  are  writers  of  books, 
with  our  garments  if  we  are  artificers  of 
habiliments. 

The  problem  of  memory  is  closely  con 
nected  with  the  question  of  the  mechanical' 
relation  between  thought  and  structure.  How 
intimate  is  the  alliance  of  memory  with  the 
material  condition  of  the  brain,  is  shown  by 
the  effect  of  age,  of  disease,  of  a  blow,  of 
intoxication.  I  have  known  an  aged  person 
repeat  the  same  question  five,  six,  or  seven 
times  during  the  same  brief  visit.  Every 
body  knows  the  archbishop's  flavor  of  apo 
plexy  in  the  memory  as  in  the  other  mental 
powers.  I  was  once  asked  to  see  to  a  woman 
who  had  just 'been  injured  in  the  street.  On 
coming  to  herself,  "  Where  am  I  ?  what 
has  happened  ?  "  she  asked.  "  Knocked 
down  by  a  horse,  ma'am  ;  stunned  a  little : 
that  is  all."  A  pause,  "  while  one  with 
moderate  haste  might  count  a  hundred  ;  " 


70  MECHANISM 

and  then  again,  "  Where  am  I  ?  what  has 
happened  ?  "  —  "  Knocked  down  by  a  horse, 
ma'am ;  stunned  a  little :  that  is  all."  An 
other  pause,  and  the  same  question  again  ; 
and  so  on  during  the  whole  time  I  was  by 
her.  The  same  tendency  to  repeat  a  ques 
tion  indefinitely  has  been  observed  in  return 
ing  members  of  those  worshipping  assemblies 
whose  favorite  hymn  is,  "  We  won't  go  home 
tiU  morning." 

Is  memory,  then,  a  material  record  ?  Is 
the  brain,  like  the  rocks  of  the  Sinaitic 
Valley,  written  all  over  with  inscriptions  left 
by  the  long  caravans  of  thought,  as  they 
have  passed  year  after  year  through  its 
mysterious  recesses  ? 

When  we  see  a  distant,  railway-train  slid 
ing  by  us  in  the  same  line,  day  after  day,  we 
infer  the  existence  of  a  track  which  guides 
it.  So,  when  some  dear  old  friend  begins 
that  story  we  remember,  so  well ;  switching 
off  at  the  accustomed  point  of  digression ; 
coming  to  a  dead  stop  at  the  puzzling  ques 
tion  of  chronology ;  off  the  track  on  the 


IX  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.       71 

matter  of  its  being  first  or  second  cousin  of 
somebody's  aunt ;  set  on  it  again  by  the 
patient,  listening  wife,  who  knows  it  all  as  she 
knows  her  well-worn  wedding-ring,  —  how 
can  we  doubt  that  there  is  a  track  laid  down 
for  the  story  in  some  permanent  disposition 
of  the  thinking-marrow  ? 

I  need  not  say  that  no  microscope  can  find 
the  tablet  inscribed  with  the  names  of  early 
loves,  the  stains  left  by  tears  of  sorrow  or 
contrition,  the  rent  where  the  thunderbolt  of 
passion  has  fallen,  or  any  legible  token  that 
such  experiences  have  formed  a  part  of  the 
life  of  the  mortal,  the  vacant  temple  of  whose 
thought  it  is  exploring.  It  is  only  as  an 
inference,  aided  by  an  illustration  which  I 
will  presently  offer,  that  I  suggest  the  possi 
ble  existence,  in  the  very  substance-  of  the 
brain-tissue,  of  those  inscriptions  Avhich 
Shakspeare  must  have  thought  of  when  he 
wrote,  — 

"  Pluck  from  the  memory  a  rooted  sorrow  ; 
Raze  out  the  written  troubles  of  the  brain." 

The  objection   to   the   existence   of  such   a 


72  MECHANISM 

material  record  —  that  we  renew  our  bodies 
many  scores  of  times,  and  yet  retain  our 
earliest  recollections  —  is  entirely  met  by  the 
fact,  that  a  scar  of  any  kind  holds  its  own 
pretty  nearly  through  life  in  spite  of  all 
these  same  changes,  as  we  have  not  far  to 
look  to  find  instances. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  a  billion  of 
the  starry  brain -cells  could  be  packed  in 
a  cubic  inch,  and  that  the  convolutions 
contain  one  hundred  and  thirty-four  cubic 
inches,  according  to  the  estimate  already 
given.  My  illustration  is  derived  from  mi 
croscopic  photography.  I  have  a  glass  slide 
on  which  is  a  minute  photographic  picture, 
which  is  exactly  covered  when  the  head 
of  a  small  pin  is  laid  upon  it.  In  that  little 
speck  are  clearly  to  be  seen,  by  a  proper 
magnifying  power,  the  following  objects  :  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  with  easily -rec 
ognized  facsimile  autographs  of  all  the  sign 
ers  ;  the  arms  of  all  the  original  thirteen 
States  ;  the  Capitol  at  Washington  ;  and  very 
good  portraits  of  all  the  Presidents  of  the 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  73 

United  States  from  Washington  to  Mr.  James 
K.  Polk.  These  objects  are  all  distinguisha 
ble  as  a  group  with  a  power  of  fifty  diame 
ters:  with  a  power  of  three  hundred,  anjr 
one  of  them  becomes  a  sizable  picture.  You 
may  see,  if  you  will,  the  majesty  of  Wash 
ington  on  his  noble  features,  or  the  will  of 
Jackson  in  those  hard  lines  of  the  long  face, 
crowned  with  that  bristling  head  of  hair  in 
a  perpetual  state  of  electrical  divergence 
and  centrifugal  self-assertion.  Remember 
that  each  of  these  faces  is  the  record  of  a 
life. 

Now  recollect  that  there  was  an  interval 
between  the  exposure  of  the  negative  in  the 
camera  and  its  development  by  pouring  a 
wash  over  it,  when  all  these  pictured  objects 
existed  potentially,  but  absolutely  invisible, 
and  incapable  of  recognition,  in  a  speck  of  col 
lodion-film,  which  a  pin's  head  would  cover ; 
and  then  think  what  Alexandrian  libraries, 
what  Congressional  document-loads  of  posi 
tively  intelligible  characters,  —  such  as  one 
look  of  the  recording  ang;el  would  brincr  out ; 


74  MECHANISM 

many  of  which  we  can  ourselves  develop 
at  will,  or  which  come  before  our  eyes  unbid 
den,  like  "  Mene,  Mene,  Tekel,  Upharsin," 
—  might  be  held  in  those  convolutions  of  the 
brain  which  wrap  the  talent  intrusted  to  us, 
too  often  as  the  folded  napkin  of  the  slothful 
servant  hid  the  treasure  his  master  had  lent 
him  ! 1 

1  "  Eas  mutationes  in  sensorio  conservatas,  ideas 
multi,  nos  vestigia  rerum  vocabimus,  quae  non  in 
inente  sed  in  ipso  corpore,  et  in  medulla  quidem 
cerebri  ineffabili  modo  incredibiliter  tninutis  not  is 
et  copia  infinita  inscriptae  snnt." — HALLEB,  quot 
ed  by  -Dr.  LAYCOCK  :  Brit,  and  For.  Med.  Rev.,  xix. 
310. 

"Different  matters  are  arranged  in  my  head," 
said  Napoleon,  "as  in  drawers.  I  open  one  drawer, 
and  close  another,  as  I  wish.  I  have  never  been 
kept  awake  by  an  involuntary  pre-occupation  of 
the  mind.  If  I  desire  repose,  I  shut  up  all  the 
drawers,  and  sleep.  I  have  always  slept  when  I 
wanted  rest,  and  almost  at  will."  — Table-Talk  and 
Opinions  of  Napoleon  Buonaparte,  London,  18G9, 
p.  10. 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  75 

Three  facts,  so  familiar  that  I  need  only 
allude  to  them,  show  how  much  more  is  re 
corded  in  the  memory  than  we  maj7"  ever  take 
cognizance  of.  The  first  is  the  conviction 
of  having  been  in  the  same  precise  circum 
stances  once  or  many  times  before.  Dr. 
Wigan  says,  never  but  once ;  but  such  is  not 
my  experience.  The  second  is  the  panorama 
of  their  past  lives,  said,  by  people  rescued 
from  drowning,  to  have  flashed  before  them.1 

1  The  following  story  is  related  as  fact.  I  con 
dense  it  from  the  newspaper  account. 

"  A  held  a  bond  against  B  for  several  hundred 
dollars.  When  it  became  due,  he  searched  for  it, 
but  could  not  find  it.  He  told  the  facts  to  I>,  who 
denied  having  given  the  bond,  and  intimated  a 
fraudulent  design  on  the  part  of  A,  who  was  com 
pelled  to  submit  to  his  loss"  and  the  charge  against 
him.  Years  afterward,  A  was  bathing  in  Charles 
Iliver,  when  he  was  seized  with  cramp,  and  nearly 
drowned.  On  coming  to  his  senses,  he  went  to 
his  bookcase,  took  out  a  book,  and  from  between 
its  leaves  took  the  missing  bond.  In  the  sudden 
picture  of  his  entire  life,  which  flashed  before  him 


76  MECHANISM 

I  had  it  once  myself,  accompanied  by  an 
ignoble  ducking  and  scrambling  self-rescue. 
The  third  is  the  revival  of  apparently  obsolete 
impressions,  of  which  many  strange  cases  are 
related  in  nervous  young  women  and  in 
dying  persons,  and  which  the  story  of  the 
dog  Argus  in  the  "  Odyssey,"  and  of  the 
parrot  so  charmingly  told  by  Campbell, 
would  lead  us  to  suppose  n'ot  of  rare  occur 
rence  in  animals.1  It  is  possible,  therefore, 

as  he  was  sinking,  the  act  of  putting  the  bond  in 
the  book,  and  the  book  in  the  bookcase,  had  re 
presented  itself.'' 

The  reader  who  likes  to  hear  the  whole  of  a 
story  may  be  pleased  to  learn  that  the  debt  was 
paid  with  interest. 

1  "  A  troop  of  cavalry  which  had  served  on  the 
Continent  was  disbanded  in  York.  Sir  Robert 
Clayton  turned  out  the  old  horses  in  Knavesmire 
to  have  their  run  for  life.  One  day,  while  grazing 
promiscuously  and  apart  from  each  other,  a  storm 
gathered ;  and,  when  the  thunder  pealed  and  the 
lightning  flashed,  they  were  seen  to  get  together, 
and  form  in  line,  in  almost  as  perfect  order  as 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  77 

and  I  have  tried  to  show  that  it  is  not  im 
probable,  that  memory  is  a  material  record ; 
that  the  brain  is  scarred  and  seamed  with 
infinitesimal  hieroglyphics,  as  the  features 
are  engraved  with  the  traces  of  thought  and 
passion.  And,  if  this  is  so,  must  not  the 
record,  we  ask,  perish  with  the  organ  ?  Alas ! 
how  often  do  we  see  it  perish  before  the 
organ !  —  the  mighty  satirist  tamed  into  obliv 
ious  imbecility  ;  the  great  scholar  wandering 
without  sense  of  time  or  place  among  his 
alcoves,  taking  his  books  one  by  one  from  the 
shelves,  and  fondly  patting  them  ;  a  child 

if  they  had  had  their  old  masters  on  their  backs."  — 
LAYCOCK  :  Brit,  and  For.  Med.  Rev.,  vol.  xix.  309. 
"  After  the  slaughter  at  Vionville,  on  the  18th 
of  August  (last),  a  strange  and  touching  specta 
cle  was  presented.  On  the  evening-call  being 
sounded  by  the  first  regiment  of  Dragoons  of  the 
Guard,  six  hundred  and  two  riderless  horses  an 
swered  to  the  summons,  — jaded,  and  in  many 
cases  maimed.  The  noble  animals  still  retained 
their  disciplined  habits." — German  Post,  quoted 
by  the  Spectator. 


78  MECHANISM 

once  more  among  his  toys,  but  a  child  whose 
to-morrows  come  hungry,  and  not  full-handed, 
—  come  as  birds  of  prey  in  the  place  of  the 
sweet  singers  of  morning.  We  must  all  be 
come  as  little  children  if  we  live  long  enough ; 
but  how  blank  an  existence  the  wrinkled  in 
fant  must  carry  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven, 
if  the  Power  that  gave  him  memory  does  not 
repeat  the  miracle  by  restoring  it ! 

The  connection  between  thought  and  the 
structure  and  condition  of  the  brain  is  evi 
dently  so  close,  that  all  we  have  to  do  is  to 
study  it.  It  is  not  in  this  direction  that 
materialism  is  to  be  feared :  we  do  not  find 
Hamlet  and  Faust,  right  and  wrong,  the 
valor  of  men  and  the  purity  of  women,  by 
testing  for  albumen,  or  examining  fibres  in 
microscopes. 

It  is  in  the  moral  world  that  materialism 
has  worked- the  strangest  confusion.  In  vari 
ous  forms,  under  imposing  names  and  aspects, 
it  has  thrust  itself  into  the  moral  relations, 
until  one  hardly  knows  where  to  look  for  any 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  79 

first  principles  without  upsetting  every  thing 
in  searching  for  them. 

The  moral  universe  includes  nothing  but 
the  exercise  of  choice  :  all  else  is  machinery. 
What  we  can  help  and  what  we  cannot  help 
are  on  two  sides  of  a  line  which  separates 
the  sphere  of  human  responsibility  from  that 
of  the  Being  who  has  arranged  and  controls 
the  order  of  things. 

The  question  of  the  freedom  of  the  will 
has  been  an  open  one,  from  the  days  of  Mil 
ton's  demons  in  conclave,  to  the  recent  most 
noteworthy  essay  of  Mr.  Hazard,  our  Rhode- 
Island  neighbor.1  It  still  hangs  suspended 
between  the  seemingly  exhaustive  strongest 
motive  argument  and  certain  residual  convic 
tions.  The  sense  that  we  are,  to  a  limited 
extent,  self-determining ;  the  sense  of  effoi^ 
in  willing ;  the  sense  of  responsibility  in  view 
of  the  future,  and  the  verdict  of  conscience 

1  "  Witness  on  him  that  any  parfit  clerk  is, 
That  in  scole  is  gret  altercation 
In  this  matere,  and  gret  disputison, 
And  hath  ben,  of  an  hundred  thousand  men  ; 
But  I  ne  cannot  boult  it  to  the  bren." 

CHAUCER  :  The  Nonne's  Preeste's  Tale. 


80  MECHANISM 

in  review  of  the  past,  —  all  of  these  are  open 
to  the  accusation  of  fallacy ;  but  they  all  leave 
a  certain  undischarged  balance  in  most  minds.1 
We  can  invoke  the  strong  arm  of  the  Deus 
ex  machina,  as  Mr.  Hazard,  and  Kant  and 
others,  before  him,  have  done.  Our  will  may 
be  a  primary  initiating  cause  or  force,  as  un- 
explainable,  as  unreducible,  as  indecomposa 
ble,  as  impossible  if  you  choose,  but  as  real 
to  our  belief,  as  the  ceternitas  a  parte  ante. 
The  divine  foreknowledge  is  no  more  in  the 
way  of  delegated  choice  than  the  divine  om 
nipotence  is  in  the  way  of  delegated  power. 
The  Infinite  can  surely  slip  the  cable  of  the 
finite  if  it  choose  so  to  do. 

1  "  But,  sir,  as  to  the  doctrine  of  necessity,  no 
.man  believes  it.  If  a  man  should  give  me  argu 
ments  that  I  do  not  see,  though  I  could  not  answer 
them,  should  I  believe  that  I  do  not  see?"  —  BOS- 
WELL'S  Life  of  Johnson,  London,  1848,  vol.  viii. 
p.  331. 

"  What  have  you  to  do  with  liberty  and  neces 
sity?  or  what  more  than  to  hold  your  tongue 
about  it  ?  "  —  JOHNSON  TO  BOSWELL  :  Ibid., 
Letter  396. 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  81 

It  is  one  thing  to  prove  a  proposition  like 
the  doctrine  of  necessity  in  terms,  and  an 
other  thing  to  accept  it  as  an  article  of  faith. 
There  are  cases  in  which  I  would  oppose  to 
the  credo  quia  impossibile  est  a  paradox  as 
bold  and  as  serviceable,  —  nego  quia  probatum 
'est.  Even  Mr.  Huxley,  who  throws  quite  as 
much  responsibility  on  protoplasm  as  it  will 
bear,  allows  that  "  our  volition  counts  for 
something  as  a  condition  of  the  course  of 
events." 

I  reject,  therefore,  the  mechanical  doctrine 
which  makes  me  the  slave  of  outside  influ 
ences,  whether  it  work  with  the  logic  of  Ed 
wards,  or  the  averages  of  Buckle  ;  whether  it 
come  in  the  shape  of  the  Greek's  destiny,  or 
the  Mahometan's  fatalism ;  or  in  that  other 
aspect,  dear  to  the  band  of  believers,  whom 
Beesly  of  Everton,  speaking  in  the  character 
of  John  Wesley,  characterized  as 

"  The  crocodile  crew  that  believe  in  election."  * 
1  SOUTHEY'S  Life  of  Wesley,  vol.  ii.  note  28. 

6 


82  MECHANISM 

But  I  claim  the  right  to  eliminate  all  me 
chanical  ideas  which  have  crowded  into  the 
sphere  of  intelligent  choice  between  right 
and  wrong.  The  pound  of  flesh  I  will  grant 
to  Nemesis;  but,  in  the  name  of  human 
nature,  not  one  drop  of  blood,  —  not  one 
drop. 

Moral  chaos  began  with  the  idea  of  trans 
missible  responsibility.1  It  seems  the  stalest 

1  "  II  est  sans  doute  qu'il  n'y-a  rien  qui  cheque 
plus  notre  raison  que  de  dire  que  le  peche  du  pre 
mier  homme  ait  rendu  coupables  ceux  qui,  e*tant  si 
eloignes  de  cette  source,  semblent  incapables  d'y 
participer.  Get  e"coulement  ne  nous  parait  pas 
seulement  impossible,  il  nous  semble  meme  tres 
injuste ;  car  qu'y-a-t-il  de  plus  contraire  au  regies 
de  notre  miserable  justice  que  de  damner  e^ernelle- 
aaent  un  enfant  incapable  de  volonte,  pour  un 
pe"che"  oil  il  parait  avoir  si  peu  de  part,  qu'il  est 
commis  six  mille  ans  avant  qu'il  fut  en  etre  ?  "  — 
PASCAL  :  Pensees,  c.  x.  §  I. 

"Justice"  and  "Mercy"  often  have  a  techni 
cal  meaning  when  applied  to  the  Supreme  Being. 
Mr.  J.  S.  Mill  has  expressed  himself  very  freely 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  83 

of  truisms  to  say  that  every  moral  act,  depend 
ing  as  it  does  on  choice,  is  in  its  nature  exclu 
sively  personal ;  that  its  penalty,  if  it  have 
any,  is  payable,  not  to  bearer,  not  to  order, 
but  only  to  the  creditor  himself.  To  treat 

as  to  this  juggling  with  words. — Examination 
of  Sir  W.  Hamilton's  Philosophy,  i.  131. 

The  Romanists  fear  for  the  future  welfare  of 
babes  that  perish  unborn ;  and  the  extraordinary 
means  that  are  taken  to  avert  their  impending 
"  punishment "  are  well  known. 

Thomas  Shepard,  our  famous  Cambridge  minis 
ter,  seems  to  have  shared  these  apprehensions.  — 
See  his  Letter  in  Young's  Chronicles  of  the  Pil 
grims  of  Massachusetts,  p.  538.  Boston,  1846. 

The  author  of  "  The  Day  of  Doom  "  is  forced  by 
his  logic  to  hand  the  infants  over  to  the  official 
tormentor,  only  assigning  them  the  least  uncom 
fortable  of  the  torture-chambers. 

However  these  doctrines  may  be  softened  in  the 
belief  of  many,  the  primary  barbarism  on  which 
they  rest  —  that  is,  the  transfer  of.  mechanical 
ideas  into  the  world  of  morals,  with  which  they 
are  in  no  sense  homologous  —  is  almost  universally 
prevalent,  and  like  to  be  at  present. 


84  MECHANISM 

a  mal-volition,  which  is  inseparably  involved 
with  an  internal  condition,  as  capable  of 
external  transfer  from  one  person  to  another, 
is  simply  to  materialize  it.  When  we  can 
take  the  dimensions  of  virtue  by  triangula- 
tion;  when  we  can  literally  weigh  Justice 
in  her  own  scales ;  when  we  can  speak  of 
the  specific  gravity  of  truth,  or  the  square 
root  of  honesty  ;  when  we  can  send  a  states 
man  his  integrity  in  a  package  to  Washington, 
if  he  happen  to  have  left  it  behind,  —  then 
we  may  begin  to  speak  of  the  moral  charac 
ter  of  inherited  tendencies,  which  belong  to 
the  machiner}r  for  which  the  Sovereign 
Power  alone  is  responsible.  The  misfortune 
of  perverse  instincts,  which  adhere  to  us  as 
congenital  inheritances,  should  go  to  our  side 
of  the  account,  if  the  books  of  heaven  are 
kept,  as  the  great  Church  of  Christendom 
maintains  they  are,  by  double  entry.  But 
the  absurdity  which  has  been  held  up  to 
ridicule  in  the  nursery  has  been  enforced 
as  the  highest  reason  upon  older  children. 
Did  our  forefathers  tolerate  ^Esop  among 


AV  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  85 

them ?  "I  cannot  trouble  the  water  where 
you  are,"  says  the  lamb  to  the  wolf :  "  don't 
you  see  that  I  am  farther  down  the 
stream?"  —  "But  a  year,  ago  ;jsou  called 
me  ill  names."  —  "O  sir!  a  year  ago  I  was 
not  born."  —  "  Sirrah,"  replies  the  wolf,  "  if 
it  was  not  you,  it  was  your  father,  and  that 
is  all  one ; "  and  finishes  with  the  usual 
practical  application. 

If  a  created  being  has  no  rights  which  his 
Creator  is  bound  to  respect,  there  is  an  end 
to  all  moral  relations  between  them.  Good 
Father  Abraham  thought  he  had,  and  did 
not  hesitate  to  give  his  opinion.  "  Far  be  it 
from  Thee,"  he  says,  to  do  so  and  so.  And 
Pascal,  whose  reverence  amounted  to  theo- 
phobia,1  could  treat  of  the  duties  of  the  Su- 

1  I  use  this  term  to  designate  a  state  of  mind 
tlius  described  by  Jeremy  Taylor :  ;'  There  are 
some  persons  so  miserable  and  scrupulous,  sucli 
perpetual  tormentors  of  themselves  with  unneces 
sary  fears,  that  their  meat  and  drink  is  a  snare  to 
their  consciences. 

"  These  persons  do  not  believe  noble  things  of 
God." 


86  MECHANISM 

preme  to  the  dependent  being.1     If  we  suffer  • 
for  any  thing  except  our  own  wrong-doing, 
to  call  it  punishment  is  like  speaking  of  a 
yard  of  vojacity  or  a  square  inch  of  magna 
nimity. 

So  to  rate  the  gravity  of  a  mal-volition  by 
its  consequences  is  the  merest  sensational  ma 
terialism.  A  little  child  takes  a  prohibited 
friction-match  :  it  kindles  a  conflagration  with 
it,  which  burns  down  the  house,  and  perishes 
itself  in  the  flames.  Mechanically,  this  child 
was  an  incendiary  and  a  suicide ;  morally, 
neither.  Shall  we  hesitate  to  speak  as  chari 
tably  of  multitudes  of  weak  and  ignorant 
grown-up  children,  moving  about  on  a  planet 
whose  air  is  a  deadly  poison,  which  kills  all 
that  breathe  it  four  or  five  scores  of  years  ? 

Closely  allied  to  this  is  the  pretence  that 
the  liabilities  incurred  by  any  act  of  mal-voli- 

1  "  II  y  a  un  devoir  reciproque  entre  Dieu  et  les 
homines.  .  .  .  Quid  debui  ?  '  accusez  moi/  dit  Dieu 
dans  Isa'ie.  Dieu  doit  accomplir  ees  promesses," 
&c.  —  Pensees,  xxiii.  3. 


IS   THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  87 

tion  are  to  be  measured  on  the  scale  of  the 
Infinite,  and  not  on  that  of  the  total  moral 
capacity  of  the  finite  agent,  —  a  mechanical 
application  of  -the  Oriental  way  of  dealing 
with  offences.  The  sheik  or  sultan  chops  a 
man's  head  off  for  a  look  he  does  not  like  :  it 
is  not  the  amount  of  wrong,  but  the  impor 
tance  of  the  personage  who  has  been  out 
raged.  We  have  none  of  those  moral  rela 
tions  with  power,  as  such,  which  the  habitual 
Eastern  modes  of  speech  seem  to  imply. 

The  next  movement  in  moral  materialism 
is  to  establish  a  kind  of  scale  of  equivalents 
between  perverse  moral  choice  and  physical 
suffering.  Pain  often  cures  ignorance,  as  we 
know,  —  as  when  a  child  learns  not  to  handle 
fire  by  burning  its  fingers,  —  but  it  does  not 
change  the  moral  nature.1  Children  may 
be  whipped  into  obedience,  but  not  into  vir 
tue  ;  and  it  is  not  pretended  that  the  penal 

1  "  No  troubles  will,  of  themselves,  work  a 
change  in  a  wicked  heart."  —  MATTHEW  HBNKY  : 
Com.  on  Luke,  xxiii.  29. 


88  MKCriANISM 

colony  of  heaven  has  sent  back  a  single  re 
formed  criminal.  We  hang  men  for  our  con 
venience  or  safety  ;  sometimes  shoot  them  for 
revenge.  Thus  we  come  to  associate  the  in 
fliction  of  injury  with  offences  as  their  satis 
factory  settlement,  —  a  kind  of  neutralization 
of  them,  as  of  an  acid  with  an  alkali :  so  that 
we  feel  as  if  a  jarring  moral  universe  would  be 
all  right  if  only  suffering  enough  were  added 
to  it.  This  scheme  of  chemical  equivalents 
seems  to  me,  I  confess,  a  worse  materialism 
than  making  protoplasm  master  of  arts,  and 
doctor  of  divinity. 

Another  mechanical  notion  is  that  which 
treats  moral  evil  as  bodily  disease  has  so  long 
been  treated,  —  as  being  a  distinct  entity,  a 
demon  to  be  expelled,  a  load  to  be  got  rid 
of,  instead  of  a  condition,  or  the  result  of  a 
condition.1  But  what  is  most  singular  in  the 
case  of  moral  disease  is,  that  it  has  been  for 
gotten  that  it  is  a  living  creature  in  which  it 

1  "  The  strength  of  modern  therapeutics  lies  in 
the  clearer  perception,  than  formerly,  of  the  great 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  89 

occurs,  and  that  all  living  creatures  are  the 
subjects  of  natural  and  spontaneous  healing 
processes.  A  broken  vase  cannot  mend  itself; 
but  a  broken  bone  can.  Nature,  that  is,  the 
Divinity,  in  his  every-day  working  methods, 
will  soon  make  it  as  strong  as  ever. 

Suppose  the  beneficent  self-healing  process 
to  have  repaired  the  wound  in  the  moral  na 
ture:  is  it  never  to  become  an  honest  scar, 
but  always  liable  to  be  re-opened  ?  Is  there 
no  outlawry  of  an  obsolete  self-determination  ? 
If  the  President  of  the  Societ}r  for  the  Preven 
tion  of  Cruelty  to  Animals  impaled  a  fly  on  a 
pin  when  he  was  ten  years  old,  is  it  to  stand 
against  him,  crying  for  a  stake  through  his 
body,  in  scecula  sceculorum  ?  l  The  most  popu- 

truth,  that  diseases  are  but  perverted  life-processes, 
and  have  for  their  natural  history,  not  only  a  be 
ginning,  but  equally  a  period  of  culmination  and 
decline."  —  Medicine  in  Modern  Times.  Dr.  GULL'S 
Address,  p.  187. 

1  There  is  no  more  significant  evidence  of  natu 
ral  moral  evolution  than  the  way  in  which  children 


90  MECHANISM 

lar  hymn  of  Protestantism,  and  the  "  Dies 
Irae"  of  Romanism,  are  based  on  this  assump 
tion  :  Nil  inultum  remanebit.  So  it  is  that  a 
condition  of  a  conscious  being  has  been 
materialized  into  a  purely  inorganic  brute 
fact,  —  not  merely  dehumanized,  but  de- 
animalized  and  devitalized. 

Here  it  was  that  Swedenborg,  whose 
whole  secret  I  will  not  pretend  to  have  fully 
opened,  though  I  have  tried  with  the  key  of 
a  thinker  whom  I  love  and  honor,  —  that  Swe 
denborg,  I  say,  seems  to  have  come  in,  if  not 
with  a  new  revelation,  at  least  infusing  new 
life  into  the  earlier  ones.  What  we  are  will 
determine  the  company  we  are  to  keep,  and 
not  the  avoirdupois  weight  of  our  moral  exu 
viae,  strapped  on  our  shoulders  like  a  porter's 
burden. 

outgrow  the  cruelty  which  is  so  common  in  what 
we  call  their  tender  years. 

"  As  ruthless  as  a  baby  with  a  worm  ; 
As  cruel  as  a  schoolboy  ere  he  grows 
To  pity,  —  more  from  ignorance  than  will." 

TENNYSON  :   Walking  to  the  Mail. 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.       91 

Having  once  materialized  the  whole  prov 
ince  of  self-determination  and  its  conse 
quences,  the  next  thing  is,  of  course,  to 
materialize  the  methods  of  avoiding  these 
consequences.  '  We  are  all,  more  or  less, 
idolaters,  and  believers  in  quackery.  We  love 
specifics  better  than  regimen,  and  observances 
better  than  self-government.  The  moment 
our  belief  divorces  itself  from  character,  the 
mechanical  element  begins  to  gain  upon  it, 
and  tends  to  its  logical  conclusion  in  the  Jap 
anese  prayer-mill..1 

1  One  can  easily  conceive  the  confusion  which 
might  be  wrought  in  young  minds  by  such  teaching 
as  this  of  our  excellent  Thomas  Shepard :  — 

"  The  Paths  to  Hell  be  but  two :  the  first  is  the 
Path  of  Sin,  which  is  a  dirty  Way ;  Secondly,  the 
Path  of  Duties,  which  (rested  in)  is  but  a  cleaner 
Way."  —  Quoted  by  Israel  Loring,  Pastor  of  the 
West  Church  in  Sudbury,  in  "  A  Practical  Dis 
course"  &c.  Boston :  Kneeland  and  Green, 
1749. 

However  sound  the  doctrine,  it  is  sure  to  lead 
to  the  substitution  of  some  easy  mechanical  contri- 


92  MECHANISM 

Brothers  of  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society, 
my  slight  task  is  finished.  I  have  always 
regarded  these  occasions  as  giving  an  oppor 
tunity  of  furnishing  hints  for  future  study, 
rather  than  of  exhibiting  the  detailed  results 
of  thought.  I  cannot  but  hope  that  I  have 
thrown  some  ray  of  suggestion,  or  brought 
out  some  clink  of  questionable  soundness, 
which  will  justify  me  for  appearing  with  the 
lantern  and  the  hammer. 

The  hardest  and  most  painful  task  of  the 
student  of  to-day  is  to  occidentalize  and 
modernize  the  Asiatic  modes  of  thought 
which  have  come  down  to  us  closely  wedded 
to  mediaeval  interpretations. .  We  are  called 
upon  to  assert  the  rights  and  dignity  of  our 
humanity,  if  it  were  only  that  our  worship 
might  be  worthy  the  acceptance  of  a  wise  and 
magnanimous  Sovereign.  Self-abasement  is 
the  proper  sign  of  homage  to  superiors  with 

vance  —  some  rite,  penance,  or  formula  —  for  per 
petual  and  ever-renewed  acts  of  moral  self-deter 
mination. 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  93 

the  Oriental.  The  Occidental  demands  self- 
respect  in  his  inferiors  as  a  condition  of 
accepting  their  tribute  to  him  as  of  any 
value.  The  kotou  in  all  its  forms,  the  pitiful 
acts  of  creeping,  crawling,  fawning,  like  a 
dog  at  his  master's  feet,  ( which  acts  are 
signified  by  the  word  we  translate  worship, 
according  to  the  learned  editor  of  "  The 
Comprehensive  Commentary,"  )  !  are  offen 
sive,  not  gratifying,  to  him.  .  Does  not  the 
man  of  science  who  accepts  with  true  manly 
reverence  the  facts  of  Nature,  in  the  face  of 
all  his  venerated  traditions,  offer  a  more  ac 
ceptable  service  than  he  who  repeats  the  for 
mulae,  and  copies  the  gestures,  derived  from 
the  language  and  customs  of  despots  and 
their  subjects  ?  The  attitude  of  modern 
Science  is  erect,  her  aspect  serene,  her  de 
termination  inexorable,  her  onward  move 
ment  unflinching  ;  because  she  believes  her 
self,  in  the  order  of  Providence,  the  true 
successor  of  the  men  of  old  who  brought 
down  the  light  of  heaven  to  men.  She  has 


1  See  note  on  Matthew,  xi.  11. 


94  MECHANISM 

reclaimed  astronomy  and  cosmogony,  and  is 
already  laying  a  firm  hand  on  anthropology, 
over  which  another  battle  must  be  fought, 
with  the  usual  result,  to  come  sooner  or  later. 
Humility  may  be  taken  for  granted  as  exist 
ing  in  every  sane  human  being ;  but  it  may 
be  that  it  most  truly  manifests  itself  to-day  in 
the  readiness  with  which  we  bow  to  new  truths 
as  they  come  from  the  scholars,  the  teachers,  to 
whom  the  inspiration  of  the  Almighty  giveth 
understanding.  If  a  man  should  try  to  show 
it  in  the  way  good  men  did  of  old,  —  by 
covering  himself  with  tow-cloth,  sitting  on 
an  ash-heap,  and  disfiguring  his  person,  — 
we  should  send  him  straightway  to  Worces 
ter  or  Somerville  ;  and,  if  he  began  to  "  rend 
his  garments,"  it  would  suggest  the  need  of 
a  strait-jacket. 

Our  rocky  New  England  and  old  rocky 
Judaea  always  seem  to  have  a  kind  of  yearn 
ing  for  each  other :  Jerusalem  governs  Mas 
sachusetts,  and  Massachusetts  would  like  to 
colonize  Jerusalem. 

"  The  pine-tree  dreameth  of  the  palm, 
The  palm-tree  of  the  pine." 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  95 

But  political  freedom  inevitably  generates 
a  new  type  of  religious  character,  as  the  con 
clave  that  contemplates  endowing  a  dotard 
with  infallibility  has  found  out,  we  trust, 
before  this  time.1  The  American  of  to-day 
may  challenge  for  himself  the  noble  frank 
ness  in  his  highest  relations  which  did  honor 
to  the  courage  of  the  Father  of  the  Faithful. 

And  he  may  well  ask,  in  view  of  the 
slavish  beliefs  which  have  governed  so  large  a 
part  of  Christendom,  whether  it  was  an  ascent 
or  a  descent  from  the  Roman's 

Si  fractua  illabatur  orbis 
Impavidum  ferient  ruince 

to  the  monk's 

Quid  sum  miser  tune  facturus, 
Quern  patronum  rogaturus  ? 

Who  can  help  asking  such  questions  as  he 
sits  in  the  light  of  those  blazing  windqws  of 
the  ritual  renaissance,  burning  with  hectic 

1  We  have  since  discovered  that  the  dogma  was 
a  foregone  conclusion. 


MECHANISM 

colors  like  the  leaves  of  the  decaying  forest 
before  the  wind  has  swept  it  bare,  and  listens 
to  the  delicious  strains  of  the  quartet  as  it 
carols  forth  its  smiling  devotions  ? 

Our  dwellings  are  built  on  the  shell-heaps, 
the  kitchen-middens  of  the  age  of  stone. 
Inherited  beliefs,  as  obscure  in  their  origin 
as  the  parentage  of  the  cave-dwellers,  are 
stronger  with  many  minds  than  the  evidence 
of  the  senses  and  the  simplest  deductions  of 
the  intelligence.  Persons  outside  of  Bedlam 
can  talk  of  the  "  dreadful  depravity  of  luna 
tics," —  the  sufferers  whom  we  have  learned 
to  treat  with  the  tenderest  care,  as  the  most 
to  be  pitied  of  all  God's  children.1  Mr. 
Gosse  can  believe  that  a  fossil  skeleton,  with 
the  remains  of  food  in  its  interior,  was  never 
part  of  a  living  creature,  but  was  made  just 
as  we  find  it,'2  —  a  kind  of  stage-property,  a 

1  Brit,    and   Foreign    Med.    Review  for   July, 
1841 ;  Wigan,  op.  cit. 

2  Owen,  in  Encyc.  Brit.,  art.    "  Paleontology," 
p.  124,  note. 


IN   THOUGHT  AND  MORALS.  97 

clever  cheat,  got  up  by  the  great  Manager  of 
the  original  Globe  Theatre.  All  we  can'  say 
of  such  persons  is,  that  their  "  illative  sense," 
to  use  Dr.  Newman's  phrase,  seems  to  most 
of  us  abnormal  and  unhealthy.  We  can 
not  help  looking  at  them  as  affected  with  a 
kind  of  mental  Daltonism. 

"  Believing  ignorance,"  said  an  old  Scotch 
divine,  "  is  much  better  than  rash  and  pre 
sumptuous  knowledge."  l  But  which  is  most 
likely  to  be  presumptuous,  —  ignorance,  or 
knowledge  ?  True  faith  and  true  philosophy 
ought  to  be  one ;  and  those  disputes,  —  d  double 
verite,  —  those  statements,  "  true  according 
to  philosophy,  and  false  according  to  faith," 
condemned  by  the  last  Council  of  Lateran,2 
ought  not  to  find  a  place  in  the  records  of  an 
age  like  our  own.  Yet  so  enlightened  a  philos 
opher  as  Faraday  could  say  in  a  letter  to  one 
of  his  correspondents,  "  I  claim  an  absolute 


1  Buckle,.  Hist,  of  Civilization,  ii.  327,  note. 

2  Leibnitz  :  Consid.  sur  la  Doctrine  d'un  Esprit 
Universel. 

7 


98  M-ECHANISM 

distinction  between  a  religious  and  an  ordina 
ry  belief.  If  I  am  reproached  for  weakness 
in  refusing  to  apply  those  mental  operations, 
which  I  think  good  in  high  things,  to  the 
very  highest,  I  am  content  to  bear  the  re 
proach." 

We  must  bestir  ourselves ;  for  the  new 
generation  is  upon  us,  —  the  marrow-bone- 
splitting  descendants  of  the  old  canni 
bal  troglodytes.  Civilized  as  well  as  savage 
races  live  upon  their  parents  and  grand 
parents.  Each  generation  strangles  and  de 
vours  its  predecessor.  The  young  Feejeean 
carries  a  cord  in  his  girdle  for  his  father's  neck ; 
the  young  American,  a  string  of  propositions 
or  syllogisms  in  his  brain  to  finish  the  same 
relative.  The  old  man  says,  "  Son,  I  have 
swallowed  and  digested  the  wisdom  of  the 
past."  The  young  man  says,  "  Sire,  I  proceed 
to  swallow  and  digest  thee  with  all  thou 
knowest."  There  never  was  a"  sand-glass, 
nor  a  clepsydra,  nor  a  horologe,  that  counted 
the  hours  and  days  and  years  with  such 
terrible  significance  as  this  academic  chrono- 


IN  THOUGHT  AND  .MORALS.  99 

graph  which  has  just  completed  a  revolution. 
The  prologue  of  life  is  finished  here  at 
twenty :  then  come  five  acts  of  a  decade 
each,  and  the  play  is  over,  with  now  and 
then  a  pleasant  or  a  tedious  afterpiece,  when 
half  the  lights  are  put.  out,  and  half  the 
orchestra  is  gone. 

We  have  just  seen  a  life  finished  whose 
whole  compass  was  included  within  the  re 
membered  years  of  many  among  us.  Why 
was  our  great  prose-minstrel  mourned  by 
nations,  and  buried  with  kings  ?  Not  merely 
because  of  that  genius,  prolific  as  Nature 
herself,  we  might  almost  say,  in  types  of 
character,  and  aspects  of  life,  whom,  for 
this  sufficient  reason,  we  dare  to  name  in 
connection  with  the  great  romancer  of  the 
North,  and  even  with  the  supreme  poet  of 
mankind,  —  was  he  not  a  kind  of  Shakspeare, 
working  in  terra-cotta  instead  of  marble  ?  — 
but  because  he  vindicated  humanity,  not 
against  its  Maker,  but  against  itself ;  because 
he  took  the  part  of  his  frail,  erring,  sorrow 
ing,  dying  fellow-creature,  against  the  de- 


100  MECHANISM 

monologists  who  had  pretended  to  write  the 
history  of  human  nature,  with  a  voice  that 
touched  the  heart  as  no  other  had  done  since 
the  Scotch  peasant  was  laid  down  to  slumber 
in  the  soil  his  song  had  hallowed.1 

We  are  not  called  to  mourn  over  the 
frailties  of  the  great  story-teller,  as  we  must 
sorrow  in  remembering  those  of  the  sweet 
singer  of  Scotland.  But  we  all  need  forgive 
ness  ;  and  there  must  be  generous  failings  in 
every  true  manhood  which  it  makes  Heaven 
itself  happier  to  pardon.  "  I  am  very  hu 
man,"  Dickens  said  to  me  one  of  the  last 
times  I  ever  met  him.  And  so  I  feel  as  if 

1  Providence  has  arranged  an  admirable  system 
of  compensations  in  the  distribution  of  talents  and 
instincts  :  so  that,  as  in  the  rule  of  three,  the  prod 
uct  of  the  extremes  of  belief  equals  that  of  the 
middle  terms ;  or,  as  in  the  astatic  needles,  the  op 
posite  polar  forces  are  balanced  against  each  other. 
In  Scotland,  the  creed  is  the  Westminster  Confes 
sion,  and  the  national  poet  is  Burns.  In  England, 
Bunyan  stands  at  one  end  of  the  shelf,  and  Dick 
ens  at  the  other. 


IN  THOUGHT  A^D  MORALS.  101 

I  might  repeat,  in  tender  remembrance  of 
Charles  Dickens,  a  few  of  the  lines  I  wrote 
some  years  ago  as  my  poor  tribute  to  the 
memory  of  Robert  Burns :  — 

We  praise  him,  not  for  gifts  divine ; 

His  Muse  was  born  of  woman ; 
His  manhood  breathes  in  every  line : 

Was  ever  heart  more  human  ? 

We  love  him,  praise  him,  just  for  this, — 

In  every  form  and  feature, 
Thiough  wealth  and  want,  through  woe  and  bliss, 

He  saw  his  fellow-creature. 

Ay,  Heaven  had  set  one  living  man 

Beyond  the  pedant's  tether : 
His  virtues,  frailties,  He  may  scan 

Who  weighs  them  all  together. 


• 


